BOOKS  BY  STEPHEN  B.  STANTON 

PUBLISHED     BY    CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

The  Essential  Life.    iamo     .    .    .    net    $1.00 
Soul  and  Circumstance,    izmo     .    net    $1.00 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 


BY 

Stephen  Berrien  Stanton 

Author  of  "  The  Essential  Life  " 


NEW  YORK 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

1910 


Copyright,  1910,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
Published  October,  1910 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Moods  and  Motives  ....  3 

II.  The  Ivy  of  Simplicity   ...  11 

III.  The  Artesian  Soul    ....  22 

IV.  Life  at  Long  Range  ....  32 
V.  The  Wastefulness  of  Worry    .  42 

VI.  The  Crest  of  Intensity  ...  48 

VII.  The  Dignity  of  Existence  .     .  53 

VIII.  The  Crescendo  of  Meaning    .  74 

IX.  The  Firmness  of  Foundations  78 

X.  Personality 91 

XI.  The  Foretellable  Future      .     .  105 

XII.  Universalities       109 

XIII.  The  Voice  Victorious    .     .     .  116 

XIV.  Every  End  a  Neiu  Beginning  133 
XV.  The  Amazingness  of  Reality   .  141 

XVI.  The  Area  of  Life      ....  163 
[v] 


2055912 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

XVII.  The  Incognito  of  the  Eternal  .  169 

XVIII.  Moral  Polarity     ...     .     .  179 

XIX.     Responsiveness 198 

XX.  Proportion  .     .'    . '  .     .     .     .  203 

XXI.     Spontaneity 217 

XXII.     Progression 222 

XXHI.  The  Chimes  of  Existence  .     .  235 

XXTV.  The  Open  Gates  of  Janus       .  243 

XXV.  Supreme  Purposes     ....  251 

XXVI.  The  Mask  of  Circumstance     .  260 

XXVII.  Babel      .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .  268 

XXVIII.     Far  Horizons 290 

XXIX.  The  Uncircumstanced  Soul  304 


[vi] 


SOUL  AND   CIRCUMSTANCE 


MOODS  AND  MOTIVES 

SENTIMENT  is  a  citadel  that  long 
defies  all  intellectual  onslaught; 
what  is  founded  on  affection 
stands.  Most  great  social  movements 
receive  their  strength  from  some  emo- 
tion which  they  awaken  or  moral  prin- 
ciple with  which  they  are  allied. 
Instinct  and  feeling  intrench  the  fun- 
damentals, tradition  and  art  perpetuate 
them;  the  heart  is  a  natural  conserva- 
tive. It  is  by  virtue  of  their  imagina- 
tive resonance  that  titles  continue;  the 
ancient  seats  of  the  aristocracy  are  the 
bulwark  of  the  institution.  Power 
should  always  preserve  its  situs:  by 
clinging  to  Rome  the  papacy  has 
strengthened  its  spiritual  sway. 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

The  mind  is  energized  by  emotion: 
until  the  spark  of  motive  ignites  it,  we 
remain  inert.  To  no  bidding  but  that 
of  the  heart  will  the  intellect  respond; 
whom  opposition  cannot  weaken,  dis- 
couragement may  wilt.  We  are  but 
latently  ourselves  till  roused ;  until  emo- 
tionally played  upon  we  do  not  know 
the  grandeur  of  our  music.  The  fierce 
flame  of  feeling  transmutes  thought 
into  a  new  element. 

Sentiment  is  our  normal  response  to 
facts,  and  argues  the  soul's  full  health; 
but  sentimentality  is  pathological  be- 
cause a  response  to  mere  fancies.  The 
philistinism  of  the  world  regards  aJl 
feeling  as  a  weakness,  and  on  develop- 
ing any  symptom  of  it  slinks  off  alone 
like  a  sick  animal.  Yet  if  the  mind 
were  to  follow  merely  its  own  sequences, 
it  would  have  no  sprightliness  or  spring. 
Only  enthusiasm  and  love  scale  heights : 


MOODS  AND  MOTIVES 

the  great  verities  are  laid  hold  of  by 
those  of  strong  sentiment.  Large 
thought  and  large  love  condition  each 
other:  we  mistrust  the  mind  if  we  sus- 
pect the  motive.  Men  are  vouched  for 
who  have  found  a  friend  to  trust  them, 
a  woman  to  love  them. 

The  removal  of  how  little  earth  lib- 
erates its  subterranean  waters:  through 
the  emotions  we  realize  our  consan- 
guinity. A  more  lasting  bond  than 
any  agreement  of  intellects  is  compati- 
bility of  sympathies.  Because  the  re- 
minder is  more  fundamental  and  hence 
more  frequent,  those  that  touch  us  on 
the  side  of  our  emotional  experiences 
are  the  most  vividly  remembered.  To 
be  spiritually  akin  is  to  be  proof  against 
inconstancy ;  the  cords  of  the  heart  bind 
firm.  Time  can  only  extend  the  area 
of  companionship  for  those  that  have  a 
common  attitude  and  responsiveness 
[5] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

toward  life;  but  basic  divergences  of 
character  show  the  more  as  circum- 
stances develop  them,  and  increasingly 
lessen  the  field  of  intercourse. 

Mood  is  the  imperative  ego  that 
makes  us  listen  to  ourselves.  The 
great  deep  wishes  are  needs  that  assert 
themselves.  Determinative  of  what  we 
do  is  the  profundity  with  which  we  feel 
it.  Nothing  is  accomplished  save  con 
amore:  let  the  professional  begin  by 
becoming  an  amateur.  *  While  I  was 
musing  the  fire  burned:  then  spake  I 
with  my  tongue.'  All  large  outlines 
of  life  are  sketched  by  the  kindling 
moment  of  genius;  those  that  labour 
over  things  that  they  do  not  feel  like,  at 
times  when  they  do  not  feel  like  them, 
are  merely  the  lesser  men  that  fill  in  the 
detail.  We  must  be  spiritually  self- 
indulgent  to  be  greatly  expressive,  for 
the  only  creative  condition  is  mood. 
[6] 


MOODS  AND  MOTIVES 

The  finer- tuned  the  soul,  the  more  up- 
lifted or  prostrated  by  its  moods ;  hence 
its  greater  need — and  usually  its  greater 
power — to  control  them  and  to  com- 
mand the  one  found  prolific. 

Too  much  do  men  subordinate  their 
inward  requirements  to  outward  exigen- 
cies, thereby  submitting  the  greatness  of 
the  soul  to  the  littleness  of  circumstance. 
Our  stay  should  not  be  regulated  by 
the  hour,  nor  our  sojourn  by  the  term 
of  the  lease,  but  rather  by  the  prof- 
itableness of  our  thought :  the  slant  not 
of  the  sun  but  of  our  efficiency  tells  the 
true  time  of  day.  Disposition  is  the 
soul's  sex;  and  the  sky  of  beauty  or 
dreariness  is  spread  over  every  scene 
by  the  meteorological  conditions  .of 
the  heart.  If  we  were  always  summer 
within,  we  should  not  need  the  tropics 
of  luxury.  Few  modes  of  life  lead  to 
our  consummation  that  are  not  founded 

[7] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

on  functional  and  psychological  neces- 
sities rather  than  on  mere  external  con- 
venience or  suitability. 

Timeliness  makes  everything  agree- 
able. Useless  is  it  to  coax  the  un- 
matured  day ;  so  ample  in  season  are  all 
things,  though  out  of  season  so  scanty. 
Why  demand  of  time  what  it  does  not 
yet  contain?  Most  unwelcomeness  of 
task  is  due  to  some  anachronism  of  taste : 
repugnance  toward  it  implies  no  inher- 
ent lack  of  merit  on  its  part  or  relish 
on  ours  but  merely  an  unreadiness  of 
relationship.  The  gradual  rearrange- 
ment effected  by  time  in  all  relations 
cures  every  disproportion  or  distaste; 
we  become  suited  to  life  less  by  any 
moral  tour  de  force  than  by  our  in- 
evitable change  of  attitude.  Delight 
is  born  and  dies  at  the  creative  moment; 
if  the  mood-current  is  cut  off,  the  whole 
mind-system  is  tied  up.  Radiant  under 
[8] 


MOODS  AND  MOTIVES 

the  sun  of  enthusiasm,  without  it  the 
world  looks  gray  and  forbidding.  We 
waste  time  tacking  against  antagonism 
when  by  waiting  for  the  wind  of  favour 
we  might  sail  so  much  faster.  Con- 
fronted at  last  by  our  outlawed  duties, 
how  amazed  we  are  at  the  mildness  of 
their  visage.  The  perpendicularity  of 
heights  is  deceptive:  few  ascents  are 
so  steep  but  that  there  is  foothold. 
Though  a  gradual  climb  doubles  the 
distance,  it  halves  the  difficulty:  the 
short  cut  of  effort  pays  its  penalty  of 
fatigue,  whereas  the  winding  way  of  in- 
clination saves  many  a  foolish  scramble. 
The  season  has  no  need  to  force  its 
flowers:  a  little  patience  brings  profu- 
sion. Whatever  its  attempt,  untimeli- 
ness  butts  its  head  against  needless 
walls  of  obstruction  and  wades  through 
superfluous  waters  of  discouragement 
and  hindrance;  whereas  experience 

[9] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

soon  levels  all  ways  and  quenches  all 
floods  and  gives  us  to  walk  everywhere 
smoothly  and  dry-shod. 


[10] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

NORMAL  life  needs  no  incite- 
ments :  there  must  be  something 
amiss  when  conditions  require 
sugar-coating.  The  world  is  a  feast 
to  the  fresh  appetite.  Ornament,  per- 
fume, jewels,  entertainment  are  so 
many  badges  of  deficit.  If  we  find  the 
coffee  and  cigars  of  existence  indis- 
pensable, we  can  know  little  of  its  real 
gusto.  Simplicity  is  an  ivy  that  pleases 
more  by  its  mere  leaf  than  many- 
flowered  luxury.  Drilling  and  dancing 
demand  music;  without  drums  and 
fifes,  bugles  and  bunting,  we  could  not 
hold  the  recruits;  but  in  its  natural 
functions  and  relationships,  life  is  self- 
inviting. 

[n] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

From  the  commonplace  surfaces  and 
spheres  of  existence  its  glory  is  re- 
fracted as  beautifully  as  from  any 
brilliant  of  privilege  or  wealth.  Nature 
surrounds  even  the  penniless  with  a 
magnificence  denied  to  Croesus  in  his 
habitation  of  extravagance.  A  double 
tide  sets  toward  simplicity :  the  growing 
unsatisfactoriness  of  the  exceptional 
and  artificial  is  joined  and  augmented 
by  a  growing  interest  in  the  usual  and 
natural.  Complexity  of  living  consumes 
its  whole  appropriation  in  mere  cost 
of  administration;  whereas  in  simple 
experiences  we  get  full  return  for  life. 
The  acquaintances  and  doings  of  fash- 
ion force  us  to  turn  our  back  upon  our- 
selves: we  obtain  sustenance  only  when 
we  forsake  the  banquet.  The  rich  find 
simplicity  as  restorative  as  the  poor  find 
it  life-giving.  Abstemiousness  is  the 
consistent  sybarite:  in  the  dry  crust  of 

[12] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

existence  we  find  its  full  deliciousness 
of  flavour.  One  observes  in  all  men  of 
experience  an  increasing  simplicity  of 
life  and  democracy  of  manner. 

The  rose  of  love  covers  every  wall 
on  which  we  train  it;  whenever  fate 
assigns  us  to  any  little  patch  of  life, 
how  happy  are  we  in  our  garden.  One 
quickly  becomes  so  absorbed  in  em- 
bellishing his  conditions  that  he  loses 
all  thought  of  altering  them:  women 
embroider  every  garment  of  existence. 
Perfection  is  too  large  a  canvas:  we 
cannot  handle  the  huge.  Chiefly  along 
its  delimitation  and  in  its  confinements 
lies  the  charm  of  the  sea.  Enjoyment 
like  investigation  revolts  at  mass:  to 
taste  or  to  test  needs  only  a  sip.  Mi- 
nutiae have  the  same  composition  as 
their  multiple  and  are  more  easily  dis- 
solved on  the  palate  of  perception. 
The  pleasure  of  existence  grows  with 

[13] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

its  paucity,  hence  often  with  our  pov- 
erty. All  experiences  that  rob  us  of 
our  trinkets  enrich  us;  we  seldom  feel 
like  prosecuting  the  thievery  of  time. 
Elision  gladdens  life  by  simplifying  it. 
Men  become  roomier  with  every  break- 
ing up  of  the  home ;  happiness  becomes 
ampler  when  obliged  to  pack  up  and 
leave.  It  is  by  ridding  us  of  our  super- 
fluities that  travel  gives  us  back  the 
essentials:  trunks  holding  our  bare  ne- 
cessities are  more  capacious  than  a 
whole  house.  The  itinerant  alone  has 
great  possessions  and  is  often  wealthier 
than  his  benefactor.  Men  of  substance 
drown  in  the  oil  of  their  own  richness: 
the  bars  protecting  wealth  imprison  its 
owner.  Joy  is  a  gypsy  that  pines  away 
in  the  captivity  of  satiety. 

The  cheeriness  of  the  local  silences 
the  call  of  the  distant;  by  our  inertia 
is  our  restlessness  finally  overcome. 

[14] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

Though  the  far  view  may  look  over  and 
beyond  the  surrounding  ugliness,  it  also 
overlooks  and  loses  the  near-by  beauty. 
Experience  soon  sees  how  surely  the 
foreign  fades  into  the  familiar,  and 
feels  thereafter  a  comparative  indiffer- 
ence toward  its  whereabouts.  To  be 
conscious  that  something  is  amiss  is 
no  proof  that  anything  else  would  suit 
us  better;  wise  men  recognize  in  their 
own  troubles  the  symptoms  of  a  uni- 
versal malady.  The  background  of 
life  being  everywhere  alike,  a  change 
in  its  foreground  little  alters  the  scene. 
We  accost  few  things  at  their  moment 
of  fulness:  the  fruit  is  seldom  plucked 
at  perfection;  the  flowers  offered  us 
are  either  buds  or  blown.  Beyond  the 
point  where  the  view  first  pleases,  let 
us  hesitate  how  we  press  on,  lest  we  not 
only  fail  to  enhance  but  entirely  miss  it. 
In  decisions  one  generally  continues  to 

[15] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

wait  for  more  determining  data,  only  to 
find  that  he  must  decide  on  what  he  had 
all  along.  Delay  of  enjoyment  endan- 
gers it;  once  pass  its  offer  by  and  event- 
ually in  a  panic  of  losing  it  altogether 
we  grasp  at  its  mere  minimum.  We  are 
always  going  to  make  a  ten-strike  so 
never  make  any  at  all:  in  waiting  for 
the  two  birds  of  occasion  we  lose  the 
one  stone  of  opportunity. 

The  less  our  happiness  depends  on, 
the  more  certain  is  its  tenure:  we  en- 
joy the  income  only  of  an  unquestioned 
fortune.  Risk  ruins  all.  Though  dan- 
ger may  spice  the  dish,  it  also  deprives 
us  of  it:  we  take  but  a  wan  pleasure  in 
what  we  think  we  are  about  to  lose. 
Let  us  withdraw  sentiment  into  a  cita- 
del of  safety.  There  is  no  satisfaction 
to  be  derived  from  anything  that  is 
out  of  accord  with  the  general  per- 
missiveness of  environment  or  event. 

[16] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

Every  special  bower  of  bliss  is  precari- 
ous; except  as  derived  from  the  com- 
mon lot  of  mankind,  happiness  has  no 
peace  of  mind.  When  we  care  for  the 
unfortunate  we  insure  ourselves;  short 
of  socialism  society  cannot  feel  secure. 
True  normalness  is  to  have  no  quarrel 
with  fate,  to  enjoy  fact  as  such,  and  to 
look  solely  to  the  inalienable  incident 
of  life  for  its  rewards.  Outdated  cus- 
toms, reactionary  theories,  antiquated 
methods  keep  their  adherents  hi  per- 
petual trepidation  and  unrest.  It  is 
the  only  peace  to  live  the  truth,  the 
only  joy  to  express  it. 

In  what  we  are  spared  consists  our 
good  fortune  more  than  in  the  utter- 
most gifts  of  fate;  the  greatest  bless- 
ings of  all  go  unappreciated  except  by 
the  imaginative  few.  Only  occasion- 
ally on  the  cessation  of  some  terror  or 
torment  are  one's  eyes  opened  to  the 

[17] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

true  nature  of  happiness.  Think  what 
it  is  to  struggle  for  the  breath  that  now 
feeds  the  lungs  so  easily  as  to  be  un- 
conscious; think  of  the  racking  pain 
of  which  these  now  quiet  nerves  are 
capable.  We  who  walk  level  places, 
do  we  call  to  mind  those  who  skirt  the 
edge  of  abysses  or  work  suspended 
over  sickening  heights  ?  The  unprized 
freedom  of  muscle  and  limb,  how 
would  one  not  ache  for  it  if  immured, 
if  bound,  if  clutched  by  paralysis; 
from  what  torture  of  fierce  flame  or 
biting  cold  does  not  every-day  temper- 
ature save  us.  Merely  in  being  as- 
sured of  our  exemptions,  not  in  ob- 
taining any  positive  benefaction,  lies 
the  immeasurable  happiness.  Grati- 
tude is  under  no  greater  obligation  than 
for  the  placid  flow  of  time  and  the  pleas- 
ant and  profitable  course  of  thought. 
If  we  could  but  realize  to  what  an  over- 

[18] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

whelming  proportion  of  mankind  our 
lot  is  an  object  of  covetous  longing, 
we  should  be  never-ceasingly  mindful 
of  our  advantages  instead  of  deploring 
any  we  may  lack.  Men  bemoan  their 
fate  and  call  Heaven  to  witness  their 
misery,  and  behold  envious  eyes  are 
fastened  upon  them  the  while. 

How  savoury  comes  life  to  market. 
We  get  from  its  fresh  produce  the  odour 
of  earth's  original  spice,  and  carry 
thence  greens  of  refreshment.  The 
natural  features  of  the  landscape  are 
a  mental  equivalent  for  the  crowrds 
and  squares  and  excitement  of  cities. 
Health  is  enough.  No  pleasure  that 
menaces  it  is  comparable  to  the  pleas- 
ure of  itself.  A  brisk  step  is  the  gayety 
of  life,  and  quick  blood  the  joy  of  living. 
There  is  no  material  success  but  health 
and  the  opportunity  to  enjoy  it.  We  ask 
rightly,  how  are  you,  not  how  are  your 

[19] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

affairs.  As  the  world  looks  different 
to  us  when  we  rise  and  when  we  go  to 
bed,  even  such  is  the  difference  between 
vigour  and  the  lack  of  it.  But  thinly 
does  the  upholstery  of  comfort  cover 
the  hardships  of  existence — scarcely 
even  does  it  conceal  their  framework; 
whereas  health  reclines  in  the  everlast- 
ing arms. 

Civilization  has  forgotten  its  ploughed 
ground.  Man  lives  in  mere  restaurants 
of  existence  and  is  clothed  ready-made. 
The  kitchen,  the  loom,  the  threshing- 
floor  have  been  screened  from  sight. 
We  are  accustomed  to  be  waited  on  by 
nature :  all  supplies  appear  in  response 
to  the  press-button  of  demand.  Not 
often  is  attention  drawn  to  original 
processes,  and  the  wood  of  reality  is 
veneered  beyond  recognition. 

The  essentials  so  few,  the  superflu- 
ities so  many;  how  little  fails  us,  see- 

[80] 


THE  IVY  OF  SIMPLICITY 

ing  the  earth  and  the  stars  are  secure! 
If  we  did  only  the  healthful,  what  hap- 
piness; if  we  did  only  the  important, 
what  peace!  Moderation  spends  the 
day  solvently  and  calls  on  time  for 
no  advancement.  The  steady  candle 
of  life  burns  with  even  rim  down  to 
its  socket.  There  is  no  way  in  which 
we  can  help  the  world  so  much  as  by 
setting  up  an  example  of  normal, 
moderate  living.  Let  us  build  our- 
selves around  some  central  court  of 
beauty  in  which  our  fountain  of  refresh- 
ment plays,  so  that  men  looking  in 
through  the  window  of  our  eyes  may 
catch  a  passing  glimpse  of  it. 


[21] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

CONSCIOUSNESS  is  a  stream 
upon  whose  surface  we  see  the 
reflection  of  many  things  that 
are  themselves  hidden.  The  mind  pos- 
sesses a  knowledge  more  basic  than 
any  acquired  through  the  brain;  the 
forms  are  provided  and  have  but  to  be 
filled  in.  We  can  comprehend  only 
what  we  knew  already:  education  sim- 
ply develops  the  ideas  we  bring  to  it, 
and  marshals  our  innate  wisdom.  All 
experience  is  a  gradual  coming  to  self- 
consciousness. 

Men  cannot  tell  from  the  music  of 
our  lips  what  is  played  in  our  heart. 
Words  like  icebergs  have  their  massive- 
ness  submerged;  one's  profound  im- 

[22] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

pressions  lie  embedded  beyond  ready 
perception  and  therefore  beyond  easy 
expression.  Strong  principles  act  si- 
lently; the  wise  man  lives  his  wisdom, 
the  foolish  preaches  it.  All  progress 
must  make  a  draft  upon  the  unrealized 
self.  We  find  ourselves  but  a  thresh- 
old and  'look  for  one  who  is  to  come.' 
With  closed  sense  and  open  thought 
we  approach  the  truth.  Our  best  gifts 
remain  gifts,  not  to  be  counted  on;  the 
goal  of  genius  is  ever  an  Atlantis  of 
fortuitous  finding  set  in  some  western 
sea  of  unconsciousness  and  yet  un- 
charted. 

Only  the  surface  smarts;  the  deep 
hurt  is  hidden.  We  receive  the  fatal 
thrust  unflinchingly  because  unknow- 
ingly; we  look  men  quietly  in  the  eye 
while  their  tongue  stabs  us  in  the  back. 
Fate  serves  its  process  upon  us  as  we 
go  about  our  usual  avocations  and  we 

[23] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

receive  suddenly  intimations  of  the 
truth.  The  world  wonders  what  ails 
us  and  cannot  account  for  the  abrupt 
change  that  unconsciously  comes  over 
us;  it  had  not  observed  the  flash  that 
opened  our  eyes  and  influences  the 
whole  after-course  of  our  life.  Fore- 
bodings respond  to  an  inner  sensitive- 
ness as  the  trembling  leaf  is  the  sole 
evidence  of  the  breeze  it  feels.  The 
light  touch  of  some  casual  word  will 
often  twang  the  harp  with  a  tone  of 
hope  or  fear  that,  unheard  of  others, 
sounds  on  through  our  soul. 

If  we  would  but  suppress  our  little- 
ness, men  would  ask  no  further  proof 
of  our  greatness.  The  rose  is  faultless 
till  it  opens.  It  is  only  wisdom  that 
will  not  hang  itself  if  given  enough 
rope.  We  lavish  affection  not  so  much 
on  those  who  deserve  it  as  upon  those 
who  do  nothing  to  alienate  it;  hence 

[24] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

the  absurd  devotion  to  pets.  What 
repute  one  gains  simply  by  not  dis- 
pelling illusions  concerning  him. 

In  the  silence  of  circumstance,  the 
essential  speaks.  Let  us  pierce  to  the 
artesian  strata  of  the  soul.  The  flow- 
ing wells  of  speech  spring  only  from 
the  deep  basin  of  experience ;  the  waters 
must  long  gather  and  stand  before  a 
clear  stream  of  truth  emerges.  By 
avoiding  effusiveness  we  keep  our  dig- 
nity intact;  reserve  stamps  us  with 
our  own  value.  It  is  the  withheld 
approval  for  which  men  strive.  State- 
liness,  that  magnificent  poplar,  keeps 
its  flag  of  enthusiasm  furled  and  cased ; 
the  mountain  of  majesty  overawes  be- 
cause seldom  unsheathed  from  the 
cloud-scabbard  of  the  sky.  Unless  at 
times  covered,  the  peak  of  favour  is  not 
appreciated;  there  are  some  compli- 
ments that  only  cheapen  their  makers. 

[25] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Graciousness  evaporates  where  it  is 
not  bestowed  restrainedly;  what  is 
not  girt  up  disgusts.  How  jealous 
should  men  be  not  to  dim  their  lustre! 
We  concede  any  greatness  to  the  great, 
and  are  pathetically  anxious  to  believe 
all  good  of  those  who  have  once  ob- 
tained our  credence.  Easier  is  it  to 
doubt  genius  altogether  than  to  doubt 
its  boundlessness.  What  is  illustrious 
seems  unlimited. 

Thought  is  a  wave  that  dances  for  a 
moment  in  the  sunlight  and  then  sub- 
sides again  into  the  ocean  of  subcon- 
sciousness  from  which  it  emerged.  If 
men  reap  only  the  surface  of  their  mood, 
they  gather  a  quick  crop  of  compla- 
cency; but  when  they  stir  the  deeper 
soil  of  disposition,  they  raise  the  full  har- 
vest of  their  soul.  Little  should  we  ever 
know  about  ourselves  unless  put  to  the 
proof  of  performance.  Conduct  turns 

[26] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

us  inside  out  and  shocks  self-content. 
Every  unwonted  situation  reveals  in 
us  unsuspected  weaknesses  and  faults; 
how  often  the  flash-light  of  a  new  ex- 
perience shows  us  the  rocks  upon  which 
we  were  drifting.  Only  through  agita- 
tion can  one  winnow  out  his  chaff.  In 
silence  and  inactivity  evil  may  lurk  un- 
noticed, but  speech  and  action  bring 
one's  flaws  into  sight.  There  is  no  spir- 
itual assurance  without  self-disclosure. 
Mere  potentiality  exaggerates  itself; 
it  is  delusion  more  than  boastfulness 
that  makes  us  brag  of  what  we  'could 
do  if  we  would.'  Only  the  attempt 
convinces  us  of  our  incompetence;  by 
disclosing  its  disability  the  effort  first 
exposes  our  shortage.  Unconsciousness 
is  an  ambush.  The  defect  we  can  still 
notice  is  not  yet  dangerous;  but  what 
eludes  detection,  eludes  correction — the 
undefmable  is  ineradicable.  It  is  the 

[27] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

unpublished  floating  debt  of  some  over- 
looked fault  that  forces  us  finally  to 
bankruptcy.  Our  sins  bring  us  to  book 
not  by  betray  ing  us,  but  by  insidiously 
limiting  our  possibilities  so  that  we 
cannot,  though  within  sight  of  it,  enter 
our  promised  land.  Life  is  a  long 
search  after  what  on  finding  we  must 
forego.  It  is  only  when  we  reach  out 
for  the  topmost  rung  of  the  ladder  of 
success  that  our  subtler  failings  catch 
us.  The  chain  of  limitation  is  not  felt 
till  we  go  its  full  length. 

Deep  influences  not  only  defy  analy- 
sis but  rarely  invite  attention:  what  is 
basic  in  us  is  generally  beyond  con- 
sciousness altogether.  Only  empiri- 
cally are  we  from  time  to  time  made 
aware  how  profound  a  hold  persons  and 
places  have  taken  upon  us.  It  is  when 
the  scene  has  ceased  to  be  scenery  that 
it  becomes  a  spiritual  background  and 

[28] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

a  real  factor  in  our  lives.  Things  of 
vital  import  so  change  our  point  of  view 
that  themselves  are  unnoticed:  every 
great  storm  shifts  the  channels  of  ex- 
perience. 

No  man  has  ever  yet  pushed  to  the 
headwaters  of  his  soul  or  climbed  to 
the  sources  of  his  inspiration.  Our  ac- 
quaintance is  with  our  results  rather 
than  with  our  modus  operandi:  im- 
possible is  it  with  the  eye  to  see  into 
the  eye.  Just  as  we  cannot  sleep  for 
trying  to,  so  by  our  efforts  to  incite 
thought  we  limit  it;  ideas  do  not  alight, 
because  we  will  not  let  them.  The 
conscious  wires  get  crossed,  but  the  deep 
conduit  of  subconsciousness  carries  an 
undissipated  current  and  delivers  an 
untampered-with  message.  Only  when 
the  passenger  travel  of  self  ceases  does 
the  mind  move  its  freight. 

[29] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Every  great  spiritual  vitality  feeds 
upon  some  radioactivity  of  unknown 
energies  and  properties  at  the  pith  of 
its  power:  the  heart  worships  before 
some  hidden  holy  that  may  not  be  un- 
veiled or  named.  Of  this  nature  are 
the  reserve  of  refinement  and  the  ret- 
icence of  strength.  It  is  the  charm 
of  children  that  they  are  still  transpa- 
rent to  the  bottom  of  their  being — like 
all  sensitive  surfaces  the  soul  in  self- 
protection  soon  veils  over.  We  are 
dumb  in  the  presence  of  those  who 
would  draw  us  out.  The  attempt  to 
make  sentiment  articulate  despoils  it: 
by  phrasing  we  exploit  and  so  deplete. 
Let  us  take  up  the  rich  grape  of  hap- 
piness into  our  blood  and  not  babble 
it  forth  in  dissipation.  In  the  silent 
memory,  things  remain  green;  but  when 
utterance  lets  in  the  light  of  reality, 

[30] 


THE  ARTESIAN  SOUL 

they  instantly  wither.  The  stream  of 
influence  dries  up  when  we  denude 
its  source  of  the  forest  of  unconscious- 
ness surrounding  it. 


[si] 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

GREAT  aims  include  the  lesser  as 
an  upper  road  commands  a 
lower.  By  fulfilling  ourselves, 
we  are  most  faithful  to  family  and 
country.  Humanitarianism  is  the  true 
patriotism:  he  is  the  patriot  whose  life, 
under  whatever  sky,  honours  humanity. 
All  obligations  to  our  fellow-men  are 
implicated  in  our  obligations  to  our- 
selves, and  are  therein  most  effectively 
discharged.  If  we  but  strike  at  once  to 
the  heart  of  a  problem,  its  subsidiary 
difficulties  vanish.  The  preliminaries 
are  dispensed  with  by  the  incidentals. 
When  men  gain  heaven,  earth  is  thrown 
in.  Mountain  ascents  suspend  our  hill- 
climbing:  we  do  not  need  to  ape  men's 

[32] 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

acts  if  we  emulate  their  motives;  the 
expedition  covers  the  ground  of  the 
excursion  en  route.  All  large  activities 
are  timely;  but  punctuality  is  an  exag- 
geration of  the  unessential.  Results 
we  had  despaired  of  come  about  natu- 
rally when  some  commanding  interest 
marshals  them;  the  muscles  are  not 
fatigued  by  a  task  which  would  have 
tired  them  had  it  not  been  part  of  a 
greater  achievement.  The  keystone  of 
purpose  turns  our  separately  useless 
capacities  into  an  arch  of  strength. 

Every  circumstance  of  beauty  seems 
beatified:  the  odour  of  divinity  clings 
to  its  garments.  A  great  act  like  a 
lovely  face  justifies  and  exalts  all  its 
adjuncts.  We  suffer  any  defect  in  those 
we  love.  Incidents  are  swallowed  up 
in  outcome;  when  the  event  is  full- 
blown, how  empty  is  the  letter-packet 
or  newspaper-file.  There  is  little  use 

[33] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

for  logic  outside  the  court-room  of 
analysis:  the  world  wants  conclusions 
and  cares  little  for  the  arguments. 

Amplification  answers  all  questions; 
supplementation  supplants  all  reasons. 
It  is  neither  necessary  nor  natural  for 
fine  souls  to  insist,  because  they  are 
themselves  convincing  and  prejudice 
in  favour  of  the  truth.  By  a  word  they 
both  enliven  and  are  enlivened ;  to  them 
or  from  them  a  mere  tone  tells.  Many 
causes  are  espoused  for  their  exponents' 
sake,  and  theories  often  decided  on 
personalities.  We  reach  only  what  we 
go  beyond,  and  do  surpassingly  only 
what  we  ourselves  surpass.  Effort  can- 
not be  hooked  over  the  eye  of  intent  ex- 
cept by  exceeding  it.  Proficiency  comes 
of  easy  power. 

We  may  make  port  in  any  wind, 
if  we  enter  on  the  right  tack.  All  that 
we  are  loving  toward  brings  us  its  gift. 

[341 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

Work  is  an  imaginary  taskmaster: 
when  we  try  the  alternatives,  we  find 
necessity  to  be  our  choice.  Obligation 
is  but  opportunity  under  another  name ; 
the  sunlight  of  love  snuffs  out  the  rush- 
light of  duty :  we  may  carry  our  burdens 
without  their  weight.  All  things  are 
tinged  by  the  purpose  with  which  they 
are  pursued;  the  subjective  side  of  the 
act  characterizes  it  to  us.  What  re- 
sistance made  repugnant,  willingness 
makes  attractive;  so  ready  is  relish  if 
only  opinion  permit.  Within  our  con- 
sciousness lies  a  cure,  for  all  unhappi- 
ness;  from  all  injustice  reason  is  a 
refuge.  Accepted  starvations  feed  us 
and  the  unresisted  bitter  draughts  re- 
fresh: even  death  is  recognized  as  a 
brother  when  it  is  unhorsed  and  un- 
masked. No  situation  is  so  bad  but 
that  there  is  some  precedent  to  salve 
it;  there  is  always  some  philosophy 

[35] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  fits  the  occasion  and  brings  re- 
lief. 

Misfortune  forces  us  to  a  more  com- 
prehensive truth  and  thereby  glorifies 
the  commonplace.  The  steep  hill-sides 
of  difficulty  lend  themselves  to  beautiful 
treatment  better  than  any  evenness  of 
ease.  How  little  credit  untoward  cir- 
cumstances get  for  all  the  good  they  do 
us — making  us  not  only  more  useful 
to  others  but  also  more  agreeable  to 
ourselves.  The  luscious  pear  of  char- 
acter ripens  best  in  the  drawer  of 
obscurity.  It  is  cjefeat  that  disciplines, 
victory  that  perverts:  the  temperance 
bred  of  the  struggle  forgets  itself  in  the 
intoxication  of  success.  Little  mishaps, 
by  warning,  withdraw  us  from  the 
greater:  reverses  serve  as  signals  of 
recall,  keeping  us  from  occupying  un- 
tenable positions  as  well  as  from  fol- 
lowing up  a  pursuit  too  far.  What- 

[36] 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

ever  upsets  self-satisfaction  makes  us 
far  worthier  of  it:  nations  worsted  by 
a  foreign  foe  invariably  turn  to  consti- 
tutional changes  or  administrative  bet- 
terment. All  attack  from  without 
hastens  reform  within. 

There  are  many  ill  consequences  that 
are  good  symptoms:  weeds  are  a  rec- 
ommendation of  the  soil  and  prove  the 
possibilities  of  rich  growth.  Unless 
having  in  it  a  place  for  failure,  no 
philosophy  is  life-proof.  Evil's  second 
crop  may  be  good.  An  opportunity 
is  not  wholly  lost  if.  it  teaches  us  to 
recognize  it  next  time.  Of  unexpected 
profitableness  are  the  hours  we  feared 
wasted;  our  strayings  of  thought  or 
speech  contribute  to  some  purpose 
which  at  the  time  we  had  not  in  view. 
What  a  discipline  to  temper  is  this 
troublesome  neighbour;  and  that  dis- 
cursive friend — to  what  feats  of  con- 

[371 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

centration  does  he  not  force  us. 
Within  the  mind  there  is  a  pigeon-hole 
of  unassortment,  a  garret  of  miscellany, 
filled  with  experiences  that  are  with- 
out immediate  classification  or  use,  for 
which  a  fitting  place,  however,  is  event- 
ually found.  Our  ideas  lie  waiting,  like 
letters,  at  a  window  of  general  deliv- 
ery, where  their  expectant  relevancies 
will  surely  call. 

Those  that  grasp  the  large  intent  of 
life  find  in  every  incident  a  meaning 
and  a  profit;  to  them,  therefore,  every- 
thing is  worth  while  and  all  time  well 
occupied.  They  lay  down  the  pen  as 
readily  as  they  take  it  up,  for  they  see  in 
the  interruption  only  a  wider  inclusion. 
We  are  never  so  busy  as  when  every 
feature  of  existence  contributes  mate- 
rial: all  experience  is  then  a  study, 
every  place  a  studio.  When  we  find 
use  for  the  waste  of  self,  we  carry  con- 

[38] 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

servation  of  energy  into  the  spiritual 
world,  and  cube  life.  It  were  possible 
for  a  well-arranged  schedule  of  occupa- 
tion to  make  of  every  act  a  means  to 
happiness  and  advancement.  The  mo- 
notony of  manual  tasks  might  be  turned 
into  a  delightful  variation  from  intel- 
lectual labour,  if  they  were  reserved  and 
undertaken  for  that  purpose;  much  of 
our  brain-work  could  be  kept  as  a  wel- 
come relief  to  bodily  activity  and  thereby 
cured  of  the  weariness  incidental  to  its 
uninterrupted  pursuit.  By  being  led 
athletically,  life  would  become  self -re- 
storative, and  agreeable  in  all  its  walks. 
All  things  are  beautiful  either  as 
jewel  or  as  foil.  The  programme  of 
every  intelligent  reform  is  not  to  destroy 
but  simply  to  assign  to  its  proper  place. 
One  recognizes  in  the  great  deed  or 
beautiful  work  of  art  a  profitable  use 
of  something  he  has  himself  slighted. 

[39] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

The  reason  'all  things  work  together 
for  good'  to  the  righteous  is  that  they 
force  them  to.  Things  are  not  so  much 
amiss  as  misplaced;  nothing  is  useless 
except  what  we  misuse.  The  same  rain 
that  houses  fashion  is  the  fisherman's 
luck. 

Outward  inclemency  drives  to  inward 
calm:  inside  the  reef  where  the  sea 
runs  is  a  lagoon  of  still  waters.  The 
climate  of  fortune  is  beyond  control, 
but  in  the  heart  a  constant  tempera- 
ture of  happiness  may  be  maintained. 
Dreary  surroundings  draw  from  us  our 
own  ideality.  Any  uncongenial  con- 
ditions or  unsympathetic  companion- 
ship force  us  to  the  development  of 
inner  resources.  It  is  when  the  day  of 
circumstance  is  reduced  to  its  darkest 
that  we  study  the  stars  of  intellectual 
vision:  when  rebuffed,  we  bring  up  our 
reserves.  Happenings  are  wholly  re- 
No  1 


LIFE  AT  LONG  RANGE 

fractory,  and  life's  only  level  is  found 
in  our  equableness  of  mood.  As  the 
bird  delights  in  buffeting  the  storm, 
the  beast  in  battling  for  food,  so  let  us 
exult  in  the  arena  of  difficulties. 


THE  misuse  of  strength  sets  up  cor- 
rectionally  a  greater  demand  for 
it;  but  its  due  exercise  restores 
at  the  same  time  that  it  fatigues,  and 
fills  as  fast  as  it  empties.  Worry  takes 
but  does  not  contribute;  haste  hurries 
nowhither  but  to  the  grave.  Only  by 
those  that  are  lusty  over  them  are  the 
doughty  deeds  done;  energy  is  always 
optimistic.  How  can  the  sick  heart 
exude  health,  or  the  soul  that  itself 
needs  cure  be  curative  ?  Unless  we  are 
sunny  we  do  not  warm  the  world. 

What  troubles  us  consumes  us;  we 
burn  without  heat,  we  flame  without 
light.  When  thought  drifts  upon  the 
rocks  of  anxiety,  we  cannot  float  whith- 

[42] 


er  we  would  to  seaward.  Ambition  is 
no  bait  for  the  big  fish  of  character; 
nothing  great  rises  to  the  fly  of  reward. 
By  exacting  too  much  from  ourselves, 
we  get  not  more  but  less :  strain  distorts 
normal  dimensions.  There  is  no  ef- 
fective cure  for  the  harassed  and  driven 
except  in  omission;  only  a  willingness 
to  forego  is  capable  of  poise.  The 
day's  respite  and  the  night's  sleep  are 
also  Sabbaths  which  we  must  remem- 
ber to  keep  holy.  God's  gifts  do  not 
have  to  be  wrung  from  Him.  What- 
ever our  exertions,  we  can  do  no  more 
than  give  out  the  quotum  of  good  that 
is  in  us:  solicitude  merely  diminishes 
the  quantity  and  dilutes  the  quality. 
The  patient  taking  of  all  as  it  comes, 
without  concern  other  than  to  derive 
its  whole  use  and  enjoyment,  produces 
our  utmost.  Not  smiles  but  an  un- 
wrinkled  brow  betokens  happiness. 

[43] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Speed  lashes  the  sea  astern  of  it, 
fretting  roughens  it  only  in  front:  the 
easier  we  take  things  the  more  we 
accomplish.  It  is  not  the  pace  that 
kills  so  much  as  our  anxiety  to  adopt 
or  keep  it — the  nerves,  not  the  mus- 
cles, offend.  Reasons  for  disquietude 
are  at  best  reasons  for  diligence.  True 
progress  leaves  no  track  of  refuse,  but 
a  beautiful  wake  of  marbled  waters. 
The  high-strung  are  musical;  the  over- 
strung need  tuning.  Like  a  hideous 
straight  road,  hurry  cuts  off  the  very 
curves  and  corners  that  constitute  the 
charm  of  living;  highways,  on  the 
other  hand,  serving  their  adjacent 
country  undergo  as  they  proceed  those 
changes  of  immediate  objective  that 
give,  both  in  direction  and  character, 
a  pleasing  variety  of  route. 

Men  are  in  such  haste  that  they 
shorten  the  very  reprieve  of  time: 

[44] 


THE  WASTEFULNESS  OF  WORRY 

hurry  and  worry  are  the  veritable  dance 
of  death.  Nothing  matters  but  its 
mattering.  Worry  causes  worse  evils 
than  it  wards  off;  hurry  retards  life — 
however  much  it  may  hasten  the  thing 
in  hand.  Only  complacency  is  efficient 
or  safe.  Though  we  are  needlessly  fear- 
ful, we  seldom  anticipate  the  fatality: 
we  are  not  on  the  bridge  when  the  col- 
lision occurs.  Even  the  over-anxious 
are  not  exempt — at  best  they  clear 
themselves  of  contributory  negligence. 

It  is,  after  all,  the  merest  fringe  of 
difficulties  and  uncertainties  that  causes 
us  concern,  as  the  smallest  customer  is 
the  most  troublesome.  Little  things 
bother  us  more  than  large  not  only 
because  we  can  do  more  about  them 
but  also  because  attention  meets  them 
first:  the  immediate  engages  us  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  remote.  Upon  the 
crisp  leaf  of  detail  every  soft  foot-fall 

[45] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

seems  a  crushing  tread.  Though  the 
view  is  still  part  of  our  garden,  beyond 
the  hill  is  transalpine:  even  apprehen- 
sion is  baffled  by  blindness.  The  por- 
tentous proves  to  be  but  the  beneficial 
rain,  while  the  devastating  cyclone  gives 
no  warning.  Like  insects  we  are  alert 
to  the  movement  of  molecules,  yet  in- 
attentive to  the  step  of  catastrophe:  we 
watch  the  ripples  but  are  heedless  of 
the  oncoming  waves.  How  self-indul- 
gent is  man,  how  solicitous  that  con- 
ditions should  suit  all  his  little  sensibili- 
ties! yet  acting  upon  him  from  every 
side  are  universal  forces  and  influences 
that  have  no  regard  whatever  for  his  per- 
sonal preferences.  Futile  in  the  face  of 
life's  great  movements  and  lifting  tides 
are  our  pygmy  calculations  and  precau- 
tions. What  the  petty  cash  of  worri- 
someness  saves  is  swallowed  up  in  the 
crash  of  fate;  what  trustfulness  loses  is 

[46] 


THE  WASTEFULNESS  OF  WORRY 

made  good  by  the  larger  increments  of 
existence. 

So  puny  is  haste  that  it  is  only  petty 
things  to  which  we  apply  it — the  big 
are  plainly  beyond  its  reach  and  there- 
fore beyond  its  blight.  Men  with  most 
reason  for  worry  least  exhibit  any, 
since  the  very  exigencies  that  would  ex- 
cuse it  are  so  grave  as  to  require  its 
excision.  Though  art  is  long,  it  is 
less  flurried  by  the  sense  that  time  is 
fleeting:  it  evokes  from  the  mind  its 
eternal  qualities.  The  moment  seems 
imperious  where  the  trifling  event 
seethes ;  but  great  events  grant  latitude 
of  opportunity.  We  have  only  to  act 
as  if  we  had  plenty  of  time,  to  have 
it.  Eternity  belongs  to  the  eternally- 
minded. 


[47] 


THE  CREST  OF  INTENSITY 

EXCESS  is  a  universal  restorative: 
extremes  encounter  a  natural 
check  from  which  they  recoil. 
When  faults  become  flagrant,  their  cor- 
rection is  not  far;  there  is  hope  when 
the  injustice  is  glaring.  Troubles  keep 
gathering  until  some  lightning-stroke 
of  accentuation  precipitates  their  poig- 
nancy and  dread,  thereby  clarifying 
again  the  sky  of  our  serenity.  Vehe- 
mence is  only  the  more  quickly  con- 
verted, and  never  fails  to  chide  itself 
for  unfairness.  The  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdum  is  an  ever-cogent  argument. 
It  is  only  inexperience  that  is  con- 
vinced at  the  top  and  doubtful  at  the 
bottom.  At  the  maximum  and  mini- 

[48] 


THE  CREST  OF  INTENSITY 

mum  of  apparent  potentiality  the  turn- 
ing-point is  reached:  let  us  look  for 
reversal  whenever  long  continuance  has 
eliminated  all  sceptics.  The  longer  we 
wait  the  less  reason  have  we  for  losing 
hope.  Perseverance  is  a  level  unbroken 
by  the  ups  and  downs  of  incident  or  the 
unevenness  of  judgment.  The  salve 
of  events  is  the  recognition  of  their 
temporary  character. 

Every  crest  of  eagerness  curls  over 
into  a  hollow  of  aversion.  Exagger- 
ation resents  itself  and  for  recupera- 
tion seeks  its  antipodes.  As  love  to 
hate,  so  relish  turns  to  disgust.  It  is 
proverbial  that  we  cry  before  evening 
if  we  begin  the  day  laughing:  both 
because  it  over-anticipates  and  because 
it  nervously  reacts,  elation  subsides  into 
depression.  There  is  no  cause  for 
wonder  in  the  antitheses  of  experience, 
when  once  we  realize  the  sequential 

[49] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

character  of  the  relationship.  How 
many  pencil-points  of  purpose  are  bro- 
ken by  over-sharpening.  The  clear- 
est vision  is  quickest  clouded;  by  the 
slightest  use  is  the  keen  edge  turned. 
Every  western  coast  of  extremity  con- 
fronts already  the  east  of  its  opposite: 
the  fool  and  the  hero  are  closely  akin; 
brilliance  ever  invites  eclipse.  From 
the  countryside  the  clouds,  from  the 
city  the  smoke,  rise  and  obscure  the 
sun.  Delicate  adjustments  suffer  con- 
stant derangement;  the  glassy  surface 
of  peace  may  be  shattered  by  a  breath. 
In  self-defence  and  self-disguise  fine- 
ness recoils  and  roughens  itself:  it  is 
always  the  fairest  day  that  freckles  and 
under  a  veil  of  mist  conceals  the  deli- 
cacy of  its  complexion. 

We  can  go  but  a  little  way  in  our 
own  direction  without  being  lost  to 
sight  and  unable  longer  to  communi- 

[50] 


THE  CREST  OF  INTENSITY 

cate  our  whereabouts  to  others.  It 
is  the  tragedy  of  all  sensitiveness  and 
genius  that  they  may  no  more  fraternize 
with  their  fellows  or  receive  the  gen- 
eral support  of  existence.  Food  is  with 
difficulty  brought  us  in  the  trenches. 
All  pursuits  pushed  too  far  leave  us  in 
an  exposed  position;  there  is  risk  of 
despair  when  we  are  cut  off  from  the 
main  body  of  mankind.  Men  of  one 
idea  become  devoid  of  area:  the  pulse 
of  the  scholar  slackens;  the  outlook  of 
the  business  man  contracts.  All  spe- 
cialism is  a  spoliation  and  rifles  the 
treasury  of  existence:  it  enriches  pur- 
pose at  the  expense  of  the  heart — the 
soul  is  left  juiceless  and  joyless. 

Excess  is  never  relevant  in  dis- 
proof of  moderation.  Coveted  summer 
proves  too  cordial,  the  welcome  winter 
too  acute.  All  that  is  pressed  to  pleas- 
ure changes  its  character.  Not  long 

[51] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

can  the  languor  of  inaction  dispense 
with  the  habitations  of  liveliness;  the 
starved  ear  of  silence  craves  again  the 
metropolis  of  sound.  Upon  every  one- 
sidedness  of  occupation  or  interest,  fa- 
tigue itself  enforces  a  limitation:  men 
are  often  driven  into  broadening  and 
humanizing  themselves  in  sheer  relief 
and  for  diversion.  Under  the  open 
sky  of  existence  we  are  happy  the  live- 
long day:  some  excessive  ardour  of  in- 
terest or  act  is  it  that  overcasts  our  joy. 
How  few  are  the  lives  in  which  the 
clouds  of  invalidism  do  not  arise  and 
eclipse  the  sun  of  strength  before  its 
natural  setting. 


[52] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

THROUGH  the  archway  of  lofty 
thought  the  world  is  nobly 
framed.  The  general  aspect  in- 
jects interest  into  everything:  nothing 
is  small  that  plays  its  part.  Truth  if 
folded  is  not  perspicuous;  but  when 
spread  large,  each  feature  of  it  falls 
into  place  as  a  meaningful  factor.  A 
wide  word  wakens  attention  and  enlists 
the  heart.  No  fact  is  unimportant  that 
reiterates  an  essential  truth,  no  activ- 
ity belittling  unless  it  limits  the  mind. 
Wherever  we  open  life  up,  we  open  it 
out;  one  has  only  to  go  a  little  further 
to  find  an  outlet  for  every  ill.  Though 
for  much  there  may  seem  to  be  no 
immediate  relief  save  in  forgetfulness, 

[53] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

yet  the  supplementation  effected  by  ex- 
perience always  brings  eventual  relief 
through  subordination — which  is  itself 
a  kind  of  forgetfulness.  Life  does  not 
give  us  its  big  answers  unless  we  ask 
it  its  big  questions.  With  the  elabora- 
tion of  our  branching,  our  roots  strike 
more  firmly  into  the  soil;  thought 
founds  itself  deeper  and  deeper  as  its 
rising  superstructure  requires.  None 
but  the  stably-poised  can  support  the 
burden  of  height. 

Experience  presents  itself  in  detail 
but  explains  itself  in  summation:  the 
day-book  of  incident  requires  frequent 
posting  up  into  the  ledger  of  compre- 
hensiveness. Realism  if  consistent  has 
no  consistency  and  therefore  conveys 
no  meaning;  for  all  entries  seem  trivial 
till  footed  up,  balanced  and  carried 
forward.  Though  facts  are  common 
to  all,  the  sense  of  their  comparative 

[54] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

value  is  individual:  it  is  over  the  same 
data  that  men  disagree.  Conclusions 
go  astray  not  so  much  because  of  de- 
fect in  mental  process  as  because  atten- 
tion assembles  the  ingredients  of  expe- 
rience too  partially:  emphasis  keeps 
too  close  to  self.  In  thought  as  in  ac- 
tion we  need  the  breadth  cure.  The 
sunlight  unravels  the  snarls  of  worry, 
and  perplexities  of  prose  find  their  clew 
of  egress  in  the  poetic  word.  All  final 
solutions  come  of  consulting  basic  needs 
and  disregarding  superficial  objections. 
A  wide  sense  of  the  appropriate  is  a 
wiser  judge  than  any  nice  calculation 
of  requirement.  Incident  and  occasion 
are  the  sole  variants — principles  are 
permanent  and  of  universal  applica- 
tion. Only  plans  or  decisions  made 
in  consonance  with  underlying  causes 
and  tendencies,  and  with  reference  to 
far  eventualities  rather  than  to  fluctu- 

[55] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ations  of  immediate  advantage  or  dis- 
advantage, prove  happy  of  outcome. 
Fundamentals  show  the  trend,  appear- 
ances only  its  rate  of  speed.  It  is  good 
to  realize  that  God  speaks  to  us  in  the 
out-doors  of  a  large  spirituality  rather 
than  in  the  dark-room  of  our  pettiness ; 
that  it  is  to  the  pleasant  spots  we  must 
go  to  meet  Him;  that  we  get  further  by 
following  hope  than  by  heeding  fear. 

The  concrete  is  limited  both  in  sug- 
gestiveness  and  in  appeal,  but  the 
abstract  has  a  world-wide  currency. 
Those  who  think,  see  truth  in  its  naked- 
ness and  not  merely  in  its  incidental 
dress.  We  lose  sense  of  direction  amid 
the  rank  growth  of  locality  and  must 
seek  the  stranger's  point  of  view  for 
orientation.  Any  idiom  of  mind  or 
speech  or  manner  evinces  a  lack  of 
universal  touch;  the  great  give  no  hint 
of  their  century  or  race.  Detail  pitches 

[56] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

its  voice  in  a  local  key  and  talks  pro- 
vincially;  but  to  phrase  generally  is 
to  address  mankind  and  to  couch  in 
eternal  tones  that  die  not  down  at  the 
ear.  Only  large  thought  is  inclusive 
and  therefore  conciliatory,  keeping  us 
free  from  the  contentious  tyranny  of  the 
lesser.  Where  creeds  remain  catholic 
schism  sets  up  no  rivalry;  but  when 
outworn,  they  send  their  children  forth 
in  search  of  shelter  and  momentarily 
make  faith  itself  an  outcast. 

Let  us  not  gather  life  with  too  short 
a  stem.  To  limit  the  field  of  energy 
is  to  limit  our  possibilities  in  that  field : 
the  farm  of  the  mind  must  exceed  in 
extent  the  acre  it  tills.  No  man  is 
anything  unless  he  is  much  more.  Ex- 
clusiveness  of  attention  reacts  upon  its 
fruitfulness ;  all  over-concentration  is 
barren.  The  specialist  is  guilty  of  a 
species  of  vivisection,  and  can  never 

[57] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

restore  the  live  palpitating  incidents  of 
truth  but  at  best  can  cauterize  its  bleed- 
ing incisions.  Technicalities  tend  to 
blind;  the  small  cloud  on  the  horizon 
that  will  overspread  and  change  the 
entire  sky  is  not  often  visible  to  the  va- 
ticination of  the  experts.  With  greater 
frequency  should  focussed  eyes  look  up 
to  the  far  view.  Any  over-eagerness  of 
pursuit  bends  the  body  and  stoops  the 
soul:  to  keep  mentally  erect  requires  a 
noble  disengagedness  of  purpose.  We 
would  grow  as  straight  as  the  trees  did 
we  seek  like  them  the  sun.  Too  spe- 
cific an  object  defeats  the  dream  and 
lowers  the  flight.  Because  mistaking 
itself  for  far-sight,  the  near-sight  of  the 
learned  is  the  more  incurable;  none  are 
so  shallow  as  the  deep  if  they  think  they 
have  fathomed  it  all.  Special  compe- 
tency is  enlarged  most  by  general  ex- 
perience; only  wide  observation  can 

[58] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

apply  aptly.  Once  we  can  make  the 
batter,  we  are  secret  to  all  the  recipes. 

Off  the  coasts  of  life  we  see  its  con- 
tour :  problems  if  looked  at  impersonally 
are  easier  to  solve.  What  is  detached 
avoids  the  roll  and  pitch  of  the  ship's 
motion  and  preserves  its  own  steadi- 
ness. How  few  men  think  of  things 
beyond  the  shore  of  their  own  share  in 
them.  Night  is  but  an  averted  sphere, 
shadow  our  interception  of  the  sun. 
The  universe  is  eternally  clear:  there 
are  no  clouds  beyond  the  earth's  mi- 
asma. Fears  prove  to  be  specks  upon 
the  window  of  sight.  To  infuse  little 
life  with  large  thought,  this  is  to  philos- 
ophize, poetize,  dramatize  it.  Outlook 
exclaims;  extrication  always  shouts, 
The  sea,  the  sea! 

According  to  the  intelligence  that  ac- 
costs it  is  the  meaning  of  the  world. 
The  universe,  like  the  heaven-dropped 

[59] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

sheet  containing  all  things,  is  let  down 
before  us  and  insight  is  the  voice  that 
forbids  man  to  call  anything  common. 
To  every  commonplace  specimen  the 
botany  of  perception  lends  the  partici- 
patory interest  of  its  wider  classifica- 
tion and  relationship.  How  many  eyes 
besides  our  own  look  out  upon  the 
scene — birds,  beasts,  reptiles,  insects; 
yet  all  of  them  to  so  little  effect  save 
solely  the  eye  of  understanding.  Tin- 
tern  Abbey,  theme  of  the  poet's  song, 
aesthetic  utterance  of  religion,  goal  of 
secular  pilgrimage — is  yet  to  the  vine 
nothing  but  a  wall  to  climb  on,  to  the 
red-breasted  wren  a  perch,  to  the  wind 
a  whistle,  to  the  feeding  sheep  but  a 
shadow  and  a  shelter. 

A  right  point  of  view  is  the  grip 
on  life.  Merely  to  behold  truth  and 
beauty  is  a  joy  far  exceeding  success  in 
any  partial  occupation.  We  are  spirit- 

[60] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

ual  beings  and  are  tired  not  by  spent 
muscles  but  by  low  moods.  Inertia  is 
due  to  discouragement  more  often  than 
to  laziness:  it  is  lack  of  energy  rather 
than  lack  of  strength  that  makes  us 
droop.  We  are  restored  philosophically 
to  physical  health.  I  am  cured  of  life 
every  time  I  am  sick.  Of  troubles  is 
born  tranquillity. 

Over  areas  of  expanse  the  air  comes 
large:  the  fullest  life  is  the  freshest. 
The  soul's  view  is  the  mind's  ventila- 
tion— no  thought  unless  happy  can  be 
healthy.  Philosophy  depends  for  its 
value  upon  the  experience  it  sum- 
marizes; every  true  word  boxes  the 
compass  of  the  universe.  We  prize  the 
opinion  of  certain  persons  not  so  much 
for  its  own  sake  as  for  the  sake  of  the 
wider  body  of  opinion  it  reflects.  Un- 
til the  mind  makes  the  grand  tour  it 
is  not  considerable.  Breadth  like  the 

[61] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

breeze  is  the  kiss  of  distance  and  brings 
from  the  hygienic  tracts  of  nature  the 
salutary  touch.  Through  the  air's  own 
urgence  the  balm  of  sea  and  forest  is 
spread  abroad.  Let  us  oxygenate  life 
with  leisure;  there  must  be  many  small 
parks  of  occasion  in  its  congested  dis- 
tricts of  complexity.  By  the  passive 
mood  the  active  is  re-enforced:  we 
march  further  for  the  halt.  Every 
holiday  heightens  hope  and  stimulates 
industry. 

Material  life  is  shot  through  with 
spiritualization.  When  functions  have 
once  acquired  a  spiritual  counterpart 
they  are  no  longer  purely  physical; 
with  consciousness  love  ceased  to  be 
sensual.  The  body's  best  regimen  is 
provided  by  the  mind's  hygiene;  our 
daily  bread  does  not  nourish  unless  re- 
ceived to  high  purpose.  There  is  no 
vital  factor  of  experience  that  does  not 

[62] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

nerve  us  to  some  apparently  unrelated 
effort.  From  mere  pastime  we  get  no 
pleasure,  nor  from  indulgence  profit; 
fiction  is  frivolous  if  it  simply  amuses. 
Only  furtherance  justifies.  Not  in  spe- 
cial acts  but  in  a  changed  attitude 
toward  ordinary  acts  dwells  goodness. 
The  sanctuary  is  wherever  life  is  led 
to  a  divine  accompaniment.  Thanks 
at  meals  are  a  continual  mass;  'do 
this  as  oft  as  ye  shall  drink  it  in  re- 
membrance of  me/ 

It  is  the  province  of  religion  to  see 
the  little  in  its  largest  relations;  there 
is  no  means  of  standardizing  one's 
self  but  through  contemplation  of  the 
total  content  of  existence,  and  of  self 
with  reference  thereto — ^through  consid- 
eration of  what  the  divine  mind  would 
be  or  do  if  it  operated  at  the  particular 
point  of  the  whole  scheme  of  things 
represented  by  one's  self.  Employing 

[63] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

a  psychologically  approbable  method, 
the  church  service  distributes  atten- 
tion over  the  whole  range  of  experience, 
applying  general  principles  to  every  con- 
ceivable situation  or  difficulty  and  thus 
bringing  the  soul  into  harmony  with 
goodness  in  all  its  forms  and  manifes- 
tations. If  the  real  nature  of  religion 
were  not  misunderstood,  there  would  be 
less  rancour  in  its  disputes;  through- 
out all  such  discussions  its  fundamental 
values  because  unchallenged  remain  un- 
changed. On  the  subjective  side,  not 
on  the  objective,  is  the  touch:  for  be- 
ing interpreted  in  terms  of  spirituality, 
God  is  not  less  God  but  more.  Faith 
is  no  cosmic  theory  but  a  conscious 
intimacy — a  philosophy  and  practice 
of  divine  relationship.  It  assumes  the 
attitude  and  speaks  the  language  not 
of  a  separate  and  ephemeral  creature, 
but  of  a  participant  and  therefore 

[64] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

eternal  being.  Conceiving  God  as  im- 
minent, it  believes  in  a  spiritual  one- 
ness and  continuity  rather  than  in  a 
heaven  and  a  hereafter:  it  has  no  need 
to  explain  death  away,  for  its  belief  in 
spiritual  eternity  is  built  on  perception 
of  the  character  of  this  life  rather  than 
on  expectation  of  another.  It  main- 
tains that  the  inner  vision  is  a  guaran- 
tee of  the  soul's  permanence:  as  even 
a  short  walk  shows  a  thousand  others 
worth  taking,  so  a  full  life  evinces  the 
need  of  eternity  for  its  completion. 
Great  souls  believe  because  they  feel 
their  immortality.  The  mind  in  its 
vigour  refuses  a  philosophy  of  self- 
stultification. 

There  will  always  speak  to  and 
through  us  whatever  we  heed:  to  be 
greatly  receptive  and  perceptive  is  the 
best  natural  endowment  and  consti- 
tutes inborn  genius.  Intelligent  co- 

[65] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

operation  with  large  forces  makes  us 
more  efficient  than  the  utmost  enlarge- 
ment of  our  own.  Only  small  aims 
take  shelter;  great  aims  keep  them- 
selves out  in  the  winds  and  currents, 
where  they  are  fostered  and  furthered. 
Whenever  fate  unclasps  our  arms  from 
small  objects,  we  embrace  worthier 
ones.  Facts  obscure  events.  Let  us 
lift  things  into  their  widest  relationship 
and  name  them  as  we  do  our  children 
after  some  illustrious  kinsman.  The 
south  window,  the  morning  room,  the 
sunset  seat,  the  eastward  chancel  of 
churches — such  associations  keep  the 
thought  in  transcendent  touch  and  give 
distinction  to  the  mood.  We  dignify 
life  by  making  it  full-sized.  Why  not 
frequent  only  such  places  and  engage 
only  in  such  occupations  as  are  of  wide 
suggestion;  seek  in  the  voices  of  the 
great  the  echoes  of  infinity;  bare  our- 

[66] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

selves  to  be  played  on  only  by  some 
sweeping  touch  and  withdraw  ourselves 
from  the  petty  fingers  ?  Lord,  I  spread 
out  myself  like  a  plain  before  thee  and 
ask  that  thy  sun  and  storms  both  warm 
and  temper  me — thy  winds  clear  the 
air  of  my  spirit,  thy  sunshine  evoke 
the  clouds  of  my  homage. 

All  days  of  commemoration  are  days 
of  expansion,  and  correspond — though 
they  may  not  always  coincide — with 
the  soul's  need  of  self-recollection;  an- 
niversaries of  notable  men  rally  in  us 
the  trait  to  which  their  career  gave 
emphasis.  Holidays  and  holy  days  are 
no  mere  memorials  but  indispensable 
opportunities  for  one's  own  fulfilment: 
the  soul  avails  itself  of  every  outward 
occasion  for  utterance.  Worthy  com- 
memoration does  not  look  backward 
to  a  waning  vista  but  forward  to  an 
approaching  consummation.  To  dwell 

[67] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

in  memory  shows  that  we  have  lost 
our  hold  on  hope.  We  honour  the 
past  more  by  augmenting  than  by  re- 
membering it;  reverence  both  kneels 
and  looks  up.  Better  is  it  to  hail  the 
light  in  its  fulness  than  in  the  dim- 
ness of  its  reflection,  to  enjoy  life  in 
its  beauty  than  merely  in  its  beati- 
fication. We  are  the  greater  Greeks 
and  look  out  upon  a  larger  world  with 
fuller  sight.  For  us  the  Hesperides  are 
unsphered  and  our  unknown  seas  are 
those  of  outer  space.  The  Pillars  of 
Hercules  have  moved  westward  till  they 
are  become  the  very  gates  of  the  East; 
and  the  shoulders  of  Atlas  have  broad- 
ened to  bear  the  weight  of  a  whole 
universe. 

The  broad  outward  tide  of  sympathy 
returns  with  an  uplifting  inward  tide  of 
experience.  To  see  all  is  the  only  way 
to  perceive  either  our  place  or  our  use- 

[68] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

fulness  in  it.  Many  a  purpose  is  en- 
heartened,  many  a  thought  made  agile 
by  a  new  appreciation  of  its  pertinency. 
The  whole  is  no  harder  than  the  part, 
and  tires  less  because  it  means  more. 
Only  full  information  can  pick  the  fit- 
ting; in  the  mere  attempt  not  to  act 
foolishly  we  become  experts.  A  true 
sense  of  proportion  is  not  given  us  until 
imagination  cuts  loose  from  the  accus- 
tomed— from  locality,  profession,  circle, 
cult,  age :  wherever  the  pressure  of  con- 
vention is  taken  off,  the  well-spring  of 
individuality  gushes  up.  None  but  un- 
trammelled eyes  may  see  things  dis- 
interestedly and  as  they  really  are, 
instead  of  relatively  to  some  personal 
end.  Contacts  or  ties  of  any  kind 
are  fetters  upon  the  mind's  freedom: 
men  that  conceive  life  in  its  large 
relations  feel  constrained  in  any  par- 
ticular or  special  relationship.  All  rel- 

[691 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ativities  must  be  melted  in  the  pot  of 
truth.  Partiality  is  ever  a  disqualified 
judge:  if  it  play  a  prosecuting  or  pu- 
nitive part,  justice  is  never  free  from 
suspicion;  to  leave  administration  in 
partisan  hands  is  never  safe.  Men 
that  argue  the  right  side  are  known 
by  their  quiet  reliance  on  reason;  but 
bitterness  is  a  sure  badge  of  misgiving. 
The  truth  is  calm  with  its  inevita- 
bility. 

No  one  can  exercise  circumspection 
without  being  rewarded  by  the  discov- 
ery of  something  to  better  or  to  omit; 
revision  proves  a  very  Siegfried  of  res- 
cue to  some  slumbering  Brunhilde  of 
our  unconsciousness.  When  at  length 
we  see  our  deficiencies,  we  marvel  that 
others  can  ever  have  had  faith  in  us; 
scarcely  can  we  then  understand  their 
long  tolerance  of  our  faults.  Would 
we  know  the  truth  about  ourselves, 

[70] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

let  us  simply  stand  aside  and  regard 
our  vacant  desk,  our  doffed  clothes, 
our  interrupted  task,  the  habitation 
of  our  former  sojourn.  How  much 
smaller  looks  the  lot  when  the  structure 
is  down.  Death  comes  like  a  day  of 
departure  when  we  go  forth  and  gaze 
back  with  strange  and  disillusioned 
eyes  upon  the  city  in  which  we  have 
so  long  dwelt. 

Life  is  offered  us  in  full,  but  ill- 
health  and  narrowness  halve  the  sum 
we  receive.  It  is  a  population  of  frac- 
tions. Physical  disorders  and  psychi- 
cal twilight  reduce  our  day  to  dimness. 
The  natural  trend  of  existence  is  tow- 
ard truth  and  health — among  all  the 
ills  Jesus  suffered,  bodily  ailment  is 
never  mentioned;  it  is  only  our  mis- 
application of  its  forces  that  reverses 
its  direction.  Not  our  limitations  but 
our  own  smallness  keeps  us  petty  instead 

[71J 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

of  public-spirited,  politicians  instead  of 
statesmen,  sceptics  and  scoffers  instead 
of  seers  and  enthusiasts.  How  opulent 
are  those  that  invite  life's  full  response 
and  receive  their  whole  income  of  joy. 
We  waste  ourselves  among  the  foot-hills 
and  never  reach  the  mountains.  Mere 
technicalities  of  sense-procedure  long 
cut  us  out  of  our  rightful  inheritance  of 
happiness.  By  exacting  the  little  com- 
pensations we  forfeit  the  large  gifts:  it 
is  loss  of  the  more  that  damns  the 
less.  The  great  are  simply  those  that 
are  not  moved  by  small  motives.  We 
die  like  the  pines  at  our  lower  branches, 
when  like  them  we  live  at  the  top. 

Experience  is  the  behaviour  of  the 
soul  under  exposure  to  the  universe :  all 
events  are  reducible  to  this  one  event 
that  gives  them  meaning,  namely:  the 
action  of  humanity  in  sense-contact 
with  the  material  world,  in  spiritual 

[72] 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  EXISTENCE 

contact  with  God.  Moving  along  the 
resultant  line  of  these  two  influences, 
man  traces  the  contour  of  individual 
life  and  the  profile  of  history.  Whoso 
spans  a  generation,  views  the  viaduct 
of  the  ages. 


[78] 


THE   CRESCENDO  OF 
MEANING 

INSIGHT   is  the   dulcet  piper   that 
charms    out    the    children    of    the 
heart    into    a    land    of    loveliness. 
With  magic  touch   it  rifts   objectivity 
and  opens  vistas  of  inner  meaning  that 
fulfil  our  early  dreams.     Facts  keep  un- 
folding, curtains  are  constantly  drawn 
aside  and  verities  that  transcend  all  ex- 
pectation are  unveiled.     The  enlarge- 
ment of  life  is  incredible. 

Under  the  lensed  eye  all  things  ex- 
pand and  grow  beautiful.  Reality, 
when  studied,  suffers  first  contraction 
and  then  dilation:  though  analysis  for- 
feits the  initial  spell,  it  discovers  a 
deeper.  The  prism  of  investigation 

[74] 


THE  CRESCENDO  OF  MEANING 

refracts  all  white  light  of  fact  into  its 
tricolour  glory.  Every  experience  keeps 
its  best  wine  until  the  last:  no  hopes 
but  in  their  own  way  come  true.  We 
live  a  continual  paradise  regained. 
What  satiety  stole,  simplicity  restores; 
what  knowledge  lost,  wisdom  recovers. 
Faith  survives  every  shock  and  domi- 
nates every  finale.  The  raking  of  our 
forts  only  leads  to  fortification  of  the 
impregnable  heights;  God  is  still  'eine 
feste  Burg.'  Our  philosophy  can  al- 
ways withdraw  itself  to  a  position  in 
which  it  is  unassailable.  The  quaking 
of  earth  never  drives  man  away  but 
merely  to  better  construction. 

All  deep  thought  strikes  the  great 
common  subflow  of  beauty:  existence 
is  'the  king's  daughter  all  glorious 
within.'  Wherever  perception  probes 
it  becomes  ecstatic.  One  cannot  speak 
indisputably  without  speaking  majesti- 

[75] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

cally.  The  great  aesthetic  enthusiasms 
are  not  grafted  on — they  grow  from  the 
root  of  reality.  Oratory  lends  itself 
only  to  truth,  never  to  a  mere  cause. 
Some  new  phcenix  of  imagination  soars 
from  every  mental  conflagration;  phi- 
losophy finds  no  final  expression  of 
itself  save  in  poetry. 

Credence  is  the  widow's  cruse.  Mis- 
trust and  contempt  are  doubtful  ad- 
ditions to  efficiency,  and  despondency 
is  but  a  door  drearily  creaking  in  the 
wind;  whereas  devotion  to  what  we 
have  doubles  it.  The  thoughts  we  re- 
flect upon  open  up  into  an  ever-ex- 
panding context;  every  self-interview 
becomes  a  fresh  intimacy  with  truth. 
Perception  turns  all  it  touches  to  gold 
and  raises  action  to  its  last  potency 
of  possibility.  If  any  side  of  life  seem 
shallow  or  stagnant,  the  fault  is  in 
our  way  of  looking  at  it :  the  morning 

[76] 


THE  CRESCENDO  OF  MEANING 

is  inspired,  the  evening  cheerful,  only 
noon  has  still  to  struggle  against  spirit- 
ual negation.  Nothing  is  more  exhil- 
arating than  to  have  matters  of  former 
indifference  or  distaste  become  full  of 
interest  and  delight.  There  are  no 
tracts  of  ignorance  or  obnoxiousness 
that  may  not  yet  yield  us  our  finest 
fruits  of  joy.  Under  a  musical  pres- 
entation threadbare  thoughts  receive 
a  renewed  freshness  and  words  expand 
to  a  fulness  from  which  they  never 
recede. 

Timely  construction  cures  the  archaic 
text.  Christ  abrogated  few  of  the  func- 
tions which  he  found,  but  filled  them 
with  wider  import  and  ampler  life. 
Even  in  correcting,  insight  confirms:  it 
never  lessens  meanings  but  always  en- 
larges them.  All  constitutions  and 
religions  liberalize  themselves  in  the 
reading. 

[77] 


THE  FIRMNESS   OF  FOUNDA- 
TIONS 

HE  that  states  a  reason  makes  a 
convert  and  wins  a  friend. 
All  demands  are  exacting  till 
we  see  their  intent:  we  become  recon- 
ciled to  most  orthodox  ways  by  under- 
standing them.  Not  in  multiplying 
experiences,  but  in  gaining  knowledge 
concerning  them  lies  progress.  Each 
day  adds  new  explanations  and  justifi- 
cations of  old  facts.  Over  the  entire 
field  of  life  its  rationale  is  arriving  just 
in  time  to  seize  from  the  failing  grasp 
of  formalism  the  falling  standards  of 
faith  and  to  raise  them  again  aloft. 

Few  moral  secessions  live.    Whatever 
aspect  conditions  assume,  we  chafe  un- 

[78] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

der  them:  if  they  compel,  it  is  bond- 
age; if  they  prevent,  it  is  exile;  if  they 
offer  a  choice,  it  is  a  quandary.  We 
would  lay  the  blame  outwardly,  but 
are  sobered  by  finding  the  trouble 
in  ourselves.  The  force  majeure  of 
things  quickly  puts  down  our  upstart 
rebellions  against  them  and  by  making 
us  converts  to  their  reasonableness 
keeps  us  ever  thereafter  loyal  subjects 
of  their  regime.  Our  contentiousness 
is  as  our  youth,  for  the  superfluousness 
of  quarrel  is  soon  apparent.  Life  is  a 
fight  that  is  won  by  the  peace-loving. 
Seeing  that  all  forces  quickly  spend 
themselves,  how  foolish  is  fanatical  op- 
position. Most  dawns  are  turbulent, 
but  the  wind  dies  down  with  the  day, 
and  the  evening  is  at  peace.  By  one 
discipline  or  another  are  we  all  broken 
at  last  to  life  and  brought  to  the  same 
philosophy. 

[791 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Foundations  are  deeper  than  the 
reformer  imagined  and  therefore  both 
more  unsubvertible  and  more  just. 
The  forces  of  support  as  well  as  of  over- 
throw gather  around  the  long-enduring ; 
if  investigation  shows  the  futility  of 
event,  it  shows  also  its  necessity.  The 
accustomed  and  familiar  always  seem 
easy  to  dispense  with,  yet  if  foregone 
it  is  exactly  these  that  are  most 
missed.  In  whatever  direction  we  try 
out  the  wings  of  our  liberty,  we  are 
glad  of  return.  Freedom  to  roam  so 
accentuates  self  as  to  weary  us  of  it; 
men  to  whom  every  avenue  of  choice  is 
open  crave  some  determining  neces- 
sity. We  forfeit  the  substantial  satis- 
factions by  insisting  on  whims;  if  we 
rid  ourselves  of  little  limitations,  we 
are  likely  thereby  to  incur  larger  ones. 
Long  misunderstood  and  misinterpreted 
acts  are  approved  at  last  by  our  be- 

[80] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

lated  wisdom:  our  elders  are  gone  by 
the  time  we  reach  them.  Let  us  not 
leave  our  tribute  to  be  graven  on  the 
grave.  It  is  the  fate  of  most  experience 
to  be  learned  too  late  or  applied  too 
late.  But  insight  like  all  earlier  pos- 
session reaps  the  reward  of  timeliness. 
Permanence  is  often  more  productive 
than  improvement:  the  cumulative  ivy 
clings  only  to  the  stone  of  stability. 
There  are  many  commendable  accom- 
plishments that  will  not  compensate 
for  the  loss  of  time  in  their  acquire- 
ment. It  is  not  necessary  that  things 
should  be  the  best  in  order  to  be  the 
best  for  us:  familiar  methods,  though 
defective,  may  well  be  more  advan- 
tageous than  restrictive  ones.  Any 
straining  or  constraint  costs  us  the 
effectiveness  of  ease:  our  cleverness 
undoes  us  with  our  audience.  As  soon 
as  independence  becomes  conspicuous 
[811 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

it  becomes  a  handicap,  for  any  con- 
sciousness of  appearances  prevents  the 
free  movement  of  the  mind.  No  posi- 
tion is  tenable  that  wastes  itself  in  self- 
defence.  Petty  economies  squander 
more  time  than  they  save  money.  It 
takes  a  large  stake  to  make  litigation 
profitable.  A  greater  distraction  often 
than  any  we  avoid  is  the  effort  of  its 
avoidance  and  the  sense  of  the  hostility 
thereby  incurred.  The  ruts  into  which 
we  fall  are  no  accidental  route,  but  the 
repeated  vote  of  activity  and  the  unan- 
imous resolution  of  thought.  Every 
change,  even  a  beneficial  one,  takes 
our  breath  away,  for  it  involves  some 
loss  upon  which  we  had  not  counted. 
Dangerous  to  separate  are  the  wheat 
and  tares  of  idiosyncrasy;  we  may 
jeopardize  our  quintessential  qualities 
by  uprooting  peculiarities.  The  exci- 
sion of  deep-seated  ills  is  a  heroic 

[82] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

remedy  and  one  likely  to  prove  fatal 
to  welfare. 

The  universe  cautions  but  does  not 
coerce;  it  punishes  but  does  not  pre- 
vent. It  has  apparently  resolved  that 
freedom  shall  shape  itself  and  restraint 
be  self-imposed.  And  what  such  com- 
pulsion as  reason  ?  Where  it  fails  in 
imperative  it  gains  in  suasion.  Most 
things  are  as  they  had  to  be,  and  there- 
fore once  for  all.  One  and  the  same 
throughout  all  ages  are  the  bases  of 
being;  the  channels  of  existence  have 
not  greatly  shifted  since  the  beginning 
of  time.  The  old  ways  because  the  nat- 
ural ways  survive  every  innovation  to 
which  it  was  expected  they  would  suc- 
cumb. Few  are  the  customs  or  usages 
that  fancy  does  not  some  day  revive; 
the  old-fashioned  always  enjoys  an 
Indian-summer  of  favour.  We  mistake 
the  froth  of  change  for  a  new  surface 

[83] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

till  we  find  there  is  no  substance  be- 
neath. The  radical  becomes  both  dis- 
illusioned as  to  his  dream  and  reas- 
sured as  to  reality.  If  energy  disdains 
precedent,  it  sacrifices  some  of  its  effi- 
ciency; except  from  the  high  table-land 
of  experience,  individuality  should  not 
peak  itself.  The  merits  of  civilization 
are  not  fully  apparent  until  we  push 
primal  instincts  and  needs  to  extrem- 
ity. To-day's  strength  is  staggered  at 
the  accumulations  incidental  to  the  mere 
ease  and  leisure  of  the  centuries;  and 
the  toil  and  agony  that  have  gone  into 
their  spiritual  creations — who  but  the 
creative  can  comprehend  ?  Incalcula- 
ble is  the  vested  capital  of  time.  An- 
archism, like  other  anachronisms,  is 
but  the  remonstrance  of  the  waves  to 
the  shore;  for  to  the  sea-level  all  ele- 
vation is  an  object  of  envy. 

Sooner  or  later  compromise  cuts  the 

[84] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

locks  of  every  Samson.  There  is  al- 
ways an  element  of  ignorance  about 
what  we  immoderately  hate  or  love — 
hate  being  blinder  than  love  because 
it  overlooks  whereas  love  only  looks 
away.  Fuller  experience  neutralizes 
both  extremes  and  imbues  us  with  sub- 
dued mixed  feelings.  The  precipitate 
choices  of  enthusiasm  seldom  wear 
well:  only  what  is  never  wholly  in 
place  is  never  wholly  out  of  place.  It 
is  better  that  friends,  as  well  as  articles 
of  general  necessity,  should  be  pass- 
ably suitable  to  all  occasions  rather 
than  perfectly  but  at  the  same  time 
exclusively  so  to  one.  Most  hasty  pur- 
chases, snap  judgments,  acquaintances 
du  voyage,  sudden  marriages  develop 
later  some  feature  of  undesirability.  It 
is  usually  the  bitter  fate  of  brilliant 
qualifications  to  find  themselves  passed 
over  in  favour  of  mediocre  but  all-round 

[85] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

capacity;  the  dark  horse  is  always  a 
moderate. 

No  new  up-building  can  cut  off  the 
ancient  lights  of  faith.  Progress,  what- 
ever its  innovation,  respects  the  ease- 
ments of  the  soul :  the  spiritual  view  is 
inviolable.  Life  smiles  upon  any  front 
reason  presents,  and  festoons  it  with 
garlands  of  love.  Poetry  is  a  perennial : 
the  flowers  of  fantasy  spring  up  around 
every  fact  and  embower  every  form  of 
truth.  Whatever  dynasty  reigns,  the 
pomps,  the  glory,  the  dignities  go  on; 
though  we  destroy  the  structure's  funda- 
ment, let  us  preserve  its  ornament,  for 
this  will  still  be  needed  in  the  new.  No 
religion  has  neglected  to  call  in  to  its 
aid  the  essential  sanctities  of  nature: 
the  scene,  the  sky,  the  season  offer  an 
alliance  that  none  dare  reject.  All 
Easters  or  harvest-homes  have  an  au- 
tochthony  of  meaning  that  antedates 

[86] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

any  theology,  making  them  festivals  in 
their  own  right.  Religious  devotion 
whencesoever  originating  draws  from 
the  same  springs :  the  sanities  and  beau- 
ties of  existence  respond  to  and  corrobo- 
rate every  sincere  faith.  There  is  noth- 
ing potent  in  any  form  of  worship  but 
it  becomes  the  heritage  of  its  successors. 
Needlessly  has  liberal  Christianity  im- 
poverished itself  by  rejecting  all  the 
traditions  of  the  historic  churches.  The 
romance  and  poetry  that  have  grown 
up  within  and  around  the  cult  of  Rome 
are — to  a  large  extent — pertinent  to  no 
particular  creed  but  are  the  universal 
possession  of  Christendom. 

Inconsistencies  and  contradictions 
soon  cease  to  disconcert  us,  or  even 
to  put  us  to  our  election;  we  calmly 
posit  some  inclusive  truth  that  recon- 
ciles them.  To  supplement  is  always 
to  solve.  Truths  that  seem  to  clash, 

[87] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

really  only  eclipse  each  other:  every 
stellar  verity  has  its  own  orbit,  and 
the  universe  contains  all  without  in- 
terference. Principles  are  often  philo- 
sophically consistent  though  conflicting 
in  application,  like  ships  that  collide  at 
the  harbour  mouth  though  at  sea  giving 
each  other  a  wide  berth.  Of  so  many 
selves  are  we  composed  that  no  in- 
congruity of  speech  or  conduct  con- 
victs us  of  insincerity;  every  new  con- 
tact calls  upon  us  for  the  emphasis  of 
some  different  phase  of  disposition — 
causing  us  without  hypocrisy  to  adapt 
our  manner  to  the  occasion.  We  are 
potentially  any  personality  that  we 
vividly  picture ;  and  incipiently  feel  the 
sentiment  that  seems  suitable. 

Truth  quarrels  with  itself  only  be- 
cause subdivided:  contention  is  gen- 
erally but  the  confrontation  of  its  parts. 
The  solution  of  most  altercations  is  not 

[88] 


THE  FIRMNESS  OF  FOUNDATIONS 

ouster  but  cotenancy:  by  addition  not 
by  subtraction  we  amplify  truth  and 
make  it  total.  There  is  no  reason  why 
argument  should  lead  to  a  wrangle  of 
words,  but  at  most  to  a  new  angle  of 
vision;  antagonism  issues  usually  in 
some  newly-qualified  assertion.  No 
contradiction  can  be  permanent — or  if 
permanent  real.  We  cripple  conclusion 
whenever  for  the  sake  of  clearness  we 
reject  data:  always  to  stay  where  we 
can  see  bottom  keeps  us  in  shallow 
waters.  The  inclusive  view  cannot  be 
composed  otherwise  than  of  detached 
glimpses  from  manifold  points:  what 
philosophy  gains  in  consistency  it  is 
wont  to  suffer  in  comprehensiveness. 
How  long  must  not  thought  be 
ploughed  and  harrowed  by  experience 
before  ready  for  grading  and  seeding 
and  setting  out  into  the  fair,  smooth 
lawn  of  system. 

[89] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

The  world  seems  incoherent;  yet  all 
its  phenomena  spring  from  one  and  the 
same  underlying  cause  and  conduce  to 
one  and  the  same  general  effect.  The 
marvel  of  the  universe  as  of  the 
metropolis  is  multitude  moving  to  indi- 
vidual ends  without  confusion.  Think 
of  the  infinite  division  and  minutiae  of 
existence  as  it  is  to-day,  and  of  the  in- 
conceivable mass  and  variety  of  it  that 
have  already  sunk  into  the  abyss  of  the 
past — and  yet  that  myriad  ramification 
is  all  contained  in  the  mind  whose  de- 
velopment it  is.  Nature  is  but  the 
manifold  material  differentiation  and 
the  spiritual  reunification  of  the  one 
substance:  characteristic  of  all  great 
creation  is  it  that  identity  of  origin 
insures  unity  in  result. 


[90] 


PERSONALITY 

ACTION  is  not  self-analytic.  The 
fruit  lies  in  the  sap  and  juices 
and  has  to  come  out.  It  is 
only  when  a  man  flowers  that  the  world 
botanizes  him.  We  cannot  help  our 
fundamental  traits  nor  their  efflores- 
cence; ability  has  but  to  live  to  be. 
How  foolish  our  solicitude  for  self-ef- 
fectuation: nothing  else  is  possible. 
One  cannot  move  without  showing  his 
mettle.  Discouragement  merely  evinces 
ignorance  of  the  world's  modus  ope- 
randi;  impatience  is  the  inexperience 
of  expectation. 

Capacity  guarantees  itself:  what  we 
can  do,  we  must  do,  for  qualification 
is  urgent  and  captained  by  unquench- 

[91] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

able  wish.  We  are  furthermore  pledged 
to  our  idiosyncratic  methods  and  pur- 
poses; nothing  can  stir  our  fancy  and 
evoke  our  utterance  save  in  the  guise 
that  pleases  us.  Unless  satisfied  to  be 
what  we  are  we  take  leave  of  happiness 
from  the  outset.  Involved  in  one's  point 
of  view  are  both  his  individuality  and 
his  style:  under  the  persistent  lapping 
of  one's  waves  the  shores  of  circum- 
stance cannot  but  conform  to  his  con- 
tour. The  opportuneness  of  the  great  is 
not,  on  its  subjective  side,  the  accident  it 
sometimes  seems  to  be.  If  we  remem- 
bered the  inevitableness  of  genius  we 
should  cease  to  be  surprised  at  the 
sustained  loftiness  of  its  effort  or  the 
sure  recurrence  of  its  inspiration. 

Though  the  topic  of  experience  is  for- 
tuitous, the  treatment  of  it  is  our  own. 
Life  is  a  stray,  random  walk  that  brings 
us  out  we  know  not  in  advance  where, 

[92] 


PERSONALITY 

nor  does  it  much  matter.  Qualifica- 
tions attract  to  themselves  the  condi- 
tions for  their  exercise;  men  gravitate 
toward  the  persons  and  situations  that 
suit  or  need  them  not  so  much  by  inten- 
tion as  by  the  indirect  working  of  un- 
conscious predilections.  Facing  a  de- 
sign which  somewhere,  somehow,  has 
been  placed  before  his  eyes,  man  works 
it  into  the  details  of  his  life,  thereby 
fashioning  fate  to  himself.  There  is 
among  purposes  little  precedence  of  im- 
portance except  such  as  a  superficial  rel- 
ativity may  give  them.  As  long  as  en- 
ergy revolves  smoothly  in  some  orbit  of 
activity  round  ourselves,  small  differ- 
ence which  or  at  what  radius.  A 
change  of  occupation  is  but  a  new  play 
in  which  the  same  actors  of  character 
perform  new  parts.  Though  the  way- 
side changes,  the  destination  remains 
unaltered.  We  develop  along  the  grain 

[93] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

of  temperament,  and  according  to  its 
cleavage  so  is  our  career.  Our  partic- 
ular task,  to  be  sure,  is  cut  out  for  us 
by  events,  yet  it  does  not  in  spirit- 
ual reaction  greatly  differ  from  any 
other  that  could  have  been  assigned  us ; 
though  placed  through  fate's  agency, 
we  were  already  qualified  for  all  simi- 
lar positions.  A  Cromer  would  have 
found  his  Egypt  anywhere,  just  as 
every  Egypt  finally  finds  its  Cromer. 
Ismails  of  misfeasance  always  and 
everywhere  give  competence  its  oppor- 
tunity. 

Fortune  is  the  accident  that  befalls 
the  fit.  There  is  no  perversity  of  event ; 
the  buttered-side-down  of  ill-luck  hap- 
pens because  it  is  the  buttered  side. 
Everything  hits  the  sore  spot,  but  no 
more  than  any  other;  every  circum- 
stance fans  our  facility,  but  favours  oth- 
er qualities  no  less.  One  finds  what 

[94] 


PERSONALITY 

he  is  looking  for;  all  things  rush  to  the 
service  of  him  that  knows  how  to  use 
them.  We  wait  only  the  shaping  con- 
cept of  form  to  mould  life  as  we  wish. 
The  accident  of  poetry  overtakes  none 
but  the  poet,  in  whose  case  it  is  sure  to 
happen.  Successes  are  at  least  collat- 
erally incident  to  our  attempts ;  we  meet 
casually  some  day  the  mood  for  which 
we  long  have  waited.  Let  us  but  carry 
the  botany-box  of  observation  and  we 
shall  gather  many  specimens.  Into  the 
magazine  of  the  eager  mind  the  spark  of 
incident  will  inevitably  drop.  Chance 
is  a  pollen  blown  haphazard  through 
the  air  and  much  wasted,  whose  illim- 
itableness  nevertheless  insures  the  fruc- 
tification of  every  receptivity. 

All  ships  are  alike  steady  in  the 
smooth  harbour  of  convention,  but  the 
high  sea  of  experience  sizes  up  their  sea- 
worthiness: occasion  develops  hidden 

[95] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

differences  among  men  that  are  seem- 
ingly the  same.  Character  is,  as  it  were, 
a  fuel-wood  that  often  retains  its  form 
though  burned  to  ashes,  yet  will  disin- 
tegrate at  a  touch.  Out  of  the  same 
kitchen  of  circumstance  we  serve  up  ac- 
cording to  our  culinary  knowledge  such 
different  dishes.  The  genius  creates  a 
cosmos  with  the  dull  matter  at  hand. 
There  is  nothing  so  ugly  but  it  may  be 
made  the  abode  of  beauty:  to  encoun- 
ter each  moment  in  a  spirit  of  transfig- 
uring it  inspires  to  noble  words  and 
acts.  We  become  successful  when  once 
we  have  discovered  the  individual  way 
of  taking  life  that  puts  it  to  the  high 
purposes  of  which  we  had  always  seen 
it  capable.  The  efficient  are  merely 
such  as  follow  a  sweeter  and  saner  spir- 
itual hygiene. 

It  is  the  simple,  homespun  qualities 
of  character  that  are  the  final  arbiters 

[96] 


PERSONALITY 

of  our  career.  The  drift  of  intelligence 
is  determined  by  our  moral  make-up; 
we  can  follow  happily  or  successfully 
no  calling  whose  demands  are  not  sub- 
servient to  our  own  necessities.  Our 
waters  must  sink  to  their  natural  level 
before  there  can  be  calm.  Like  those 
reptiles  that  swallow  nothing  until  they 
have  first  covered  it  with  the  saliva  of 
receptivity,  so  is  the  mind.  Experience 
impresses  us  practically  or  poetically  or 
philosophically  according  to  the  kind 
of  suggestion  or  inference  it  rouses 
within  us.  If  we  see  things  in  such  a 
large  relationship  that  they  are  illumi- 
nating or  in  such  a  harmonious  one 
that  they  are  beautiful,  our  career  tends 
to  the  artistic;  if  in  such  a  human  way 
that  they  are  cogent,  we  develop  as 
moralists;  if  in  such  close  connection 
that  they  are  immediately  useful,  our 
activity  takes  a  practical  turn.  Before 

[97] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

we  can  deal  with  a  subject  it  must  be 
made  translucent  to  the  rays  of  truth 
that  are  peculiar  to  our  vision.  The 
pace  for  energy,  whether  physical  or 
spiritual,  is  always  set  by  the  motions 
of  the  soul.  What  surprises  us  most 
often  in  great  men  is  not  so  much  their 
intellectual  acuteness  as  some  moral 
trait  that  made  it  available.  It  is  not 
our  abilities  but  our  command  of  them 
that  constitutes  character. 

Mere  prevalence  because  pointing  to 
suitability  or  to  inner  compulsion  fur- 
nishes a  clue  to  propensity:  everything 
by  becoming  wide-spread  becomes  con- 
siderable. The  majority  view  is  alwavs 
more  important  as  a  fact  than  as  an 
opinion,  just  as  things  may  collec- 
tively constitute  conspiracy  that  singly 
are  innocent.  The  temper  of  a  people 
already  evinces  itself  in  the  tempo  of 
its  national  dance:  we  cross  the  bound- 

[98] 


PERSONALITY 

ary  whenever  we  encounter  the  type. 
All  lands  are  epitomized  on  the  steamer 
thither.  In  these  standardized  days 
local  peculiarities  have  come  to  seem 
artificial  and  as  if  adopted  for  effect; 
and  not  until  we  see  their  naturalness 
are  we  convinced  of  their  innateness. 

Men  hold  us  to  a  greater  accountabil- 
ity for  the  direction  our  good  qualities 
take  than  for  being  devoid  of  them  al- 
together. Over  our  abilities  they  imag- 
ine us  to  be  possessed  of  some  power 
of  guidance  that  they  do  not  ascribe  to 
us  generally.  Little  do  they  realize  that 
we  have  often  no  option  in  the  matter, 
and  that,  though  perhaps  with  equal 
regret,  we  must  go  whithersoever  these 
lead  if  we  follow  them  at  all.  We 
are  committed  to  our  excellences  as 
much  as  to  our  infirmities  and  can- 
not dictate  their  tenour  even  if  we 
would. 

[99] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Spontaneity  needs  no  voucher.  Our 
essential  traits  ramify  into  our  smallest 
acts  and  make  them  characteristic. 
All  men  are  known  in  the  breaking 
of  bread.  It  is  only  when  our  little 
ways  conform  to  our  large  words  that 
we  are  assured  of  our  sincerity;  the 
peccadillo  suffices  to  disclose  the  flaw. 
Devices  of  relief  or  alleviation  are  an 
index  of  the  disposition  that  finds  them 
restorative.  As  merits  are  a  warning 
of  antithetical  faults,  so  from  the  nat- 
ure of  our  deficiencies  can  we  often  in- 
fer the  field  of  our  efficiency.  Well  may 
one  be  submissive  to  the  disadvan- 
tages incident  to  his  peculiarities,  know- 
ing them  to  be  the  small  penalty  he 
pays  for  his  best  gifts.  Eccentricities 
are  the  normal  acts  of  an  unusual 
spirit,  by  means  of  which  it  preserves 
itself  in  subjective  normalness  and  san- 
ity. Every  experience  corresponds  to 

[100] 


PERSONALITY 

the  specialty  of  temperament  that  un- 
dergoes it;  so  that  needs,  demands, 
trials,  sicknesses  vary  with  each  one  of 
us  and  call  for  some  specific  of  allevi- 
ation or  cure.  Even  our  end  is  char- 
acteristic of  us,  for  it  is  in  the  last 
analysis  induced  by  our  characteristics : 
we  die  true  to  our  metier. 

Of  our  capacities  come  our  incapaci- 
ties, for  traits  oblige  us  to  be  not  only 
nobly  true  to  them  in  important  affairs, 
but  also  ridiculously  so  in  trifles;  we 
cannot  escape  their  jurisdiction.  Our 
merits  raise  hopes  that  our  faults  dash. 
Implicated  in  our  genius  are  our  man- 
nerisms and  our  meannesses:  all  are  of 
one  piece  and  importunacy.  The  qual- 
ities that  make  us  ashamed  of  our 
friends  are  the  same  qualities  that,  suit- 
ably exercised,  make  us  proud  of  them. 
Not  wholly  within  our  control  is  the 
extent  to  which  we  shall  avail  ourselves 

[101] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

of  our  idiosyncrasies,  nor  can  we  stop 
them  short  where  we  will.  Is  not  every- 
body put  to  it  in  one  direction  or  an- 
other to  efface  some  eccentricity  that 
makes  him  over-conspicuous,  seeking 
thereby  to  discredit  what  he  cannot 
contradict  ?  Much  that  is  set  down  to 
affectation  or  pose  or  professionalism  is 
not  in  reality  that,  but  simply  the  con- 
sistent and  unconscious  outcropping  of 
character.  Unwittingly  and  perforce  we 
live  self  out;  what  is  real  is  unavoid- 
able. 

Men  pursue  their  road  to  the  end — 
for  the  same  reasons  and  out  of  the 
same  necessities  that  have  brought 
them  thus  far  along  it.  What  fashions 
us,  determines  and  directs  us.  Though 
the  burnt  child  dreads  the  fire,  it  is  sure 
in  some  way  to  hurt  itself  again.  The 
persistence  of  causes  and  the  blazed 
trail  of  repetition  always  render  recur- 

[102] 


PERSONALITY 

rence  likely.  Instead  of  sobering  us, 
ill  consequences  often  drive  us  further, 
as  a  runaway  horse  is  frightened  by 
his  freedom  and  runs  amuck.  Men  are 
reckless  with  borrowed  money  or  they 
would  never  have  borrowed  it;  friends 
that  squander  their  capital  put  our  own 
at  risk.  Not  for  lack  of  warning  is  it 
that  fatalities  befall  us,  but  rather  be- 
cause of  such  repeated  warning  that 
we  have  grown  callous:  we  believe  no 
sign  but  the  event.  Even  a  close  escape 
leaves  us  audacious.  Victims  at  last  are 
we  of  the  very  sagacity  that  preserved 
us  longest:  new  situations  arise  to 
which  the  lessons  of  our  experience  are 
no  longer  applicable,  and  the  exercise 
of  an  outdated  wisdom  undoes  us. 
Acquisition  seldom  proves  tenacious 
when  it  falls  upon  changed  days,  for  it 
is  unable  to  perceive  or  adopt  the  needed 
precautions.  All  old  Spains  of  capac- 

[103] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ity  must  submit  to  seeing  their  golden 
Americas  drop  one  by  one  from  their 
failing  grasp. 


[104] 


THE   FORETELLABLE   FUTURE 

ANALYSIS  is  the  true  haruspex, 
and  the  constitution  of  the  uni- 
verse the  Cumsean  Books  of  the 
Sibyl.  The  future  is  not  given  over  to 
the  threateningly  possible  but  to  the 
necessarily  continuous.  In  the  inherent 
and  immanent  lies  the  philosophy  of 
the  ultimate:  an  acumen  that  could 
consistently  unfold  the  existing,  could 
construct  the  coming.  Insight  is  fore- 
sight; study,  the  safest  prophet.  A 
little  thought  puts  us  in  possession 
of  great  powers.  Though  experts  are 
sometimes  wrong,  laymen  are  only 
sometimes  right.  In  periods  of  anxi- 
ety the  unthinking  rush  to  the  bulletin 
of  news  and,  to  ascertain  the  outcome 

[105] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

of  events,  besiege  the  head-quarters  of 
their  mere  chronicle.  But  there  they 
encounter  only  uncertainty  and  hesi- 
tancy, the  consulting  of  precedent,  the 
waiting  upon  further  tidings.  Experi- 
ence on  the  other  hand  sits  quietly 
apart  and  by  deduction  from  the  known 
anticipates  the  unknown,  from  the  in- 
trinsic reasons  of  things  determines 
their  extrinsic  development. 

Most  reversals  of  tendency  are  more 
apparent  than  real;  conditions  are 
wont  to  go  on  unalterably  along  the  old 
lines.  What  comes  suddenly  is  seldom 
organic  and  therefore  seldom  remains. 
Exactly  as  to-day  is  the  fulfilment  of 
yesterday,  so  will  the  future  be  the  out- 
growth of  to-day.  Its  components  are 
in  many  instances  already  extant  and, 
as  it  were,  awaiting  us.  Existence  does 
not  break  off  but  simply  expands.  No 
to-morrow  of  hope  is  a  miraculous  birth, 

[106] 


THE  FORETELLABLE  FUTURE 

but  merely  a  new  generation.  The 
credulity  that  lends  itself  to  panaceas, 
formulae  for  world-rearrangement,  get- 
rich-quick  schemes,  predictions  of  ap- 
proaching apocalypse  and  the  like  is 
due  to  the  small  attention  given  to  fixed 
order  and  natural  laws.  How  can  we 
be  cognizant  of  probabilities  unless 
familiar  with  the  meteorology  of  possi- 
bility ?  The  forces  now  in  operation 
may  be  calculated  upon  as  continuing, 
with  only  such  changes  in  direction  or 
intensity  as  their  clash  or  union  with 
one  another  will  effect.  Would  that 
their  conjunctions  could  be  foretold  by 
man's  astronomy  with  the  same  ac- 
curacy as  are  those  of  the  stars. 

Though  we  scan  the  sky  of  eventual- 
ity, we  fail  to  look  to  the  windward  of 
events.  The  drift  of  fact  is  deceptive: 
most  storms  move  in  opposition  to  the 
prevailing  day.  It  is  still  fair  overhead 

[107] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

though  the  squall  is  about  to  break; 
still  leaden  when  about  to  clear.  Pre- 
dictions rarely  prove  profitable  unless 
they  sell  the  blue  skies  and  buy  the 
black.  Good  reasons  are  incipient  facts, 
and  the  ideal  the  only  sure  future. 
The  fan  of  fate  winnows  subtly;  time 
effects  a  reclassification  of  values  in- 
credible to  any  superficial  expectancy. 
Where  forecasts  of  the  future  generally 
err  is  in  failing  to  allow  for  some  as 
yet  unborn  factor — itself  the  product 
of  present  forces — that  is  to  play  a  con- 
trolling part  in  it.  As  to-day  is  surpris- 
ing, so  will  to-morrow  be  unexpected. 
The  symptoms  that  frighten  the  patient 
are  not  those  that  alarm  the  physician, 
but  those  he  has  overlooked. 


[108] 


UNIVERSALITIES 

PERMANENCE  and  transience  are 
but  varying  degrees  of  tentative- 
ness.  The  age  is  an  overgrown 
orchard,  half  in  decay  and  half  vital: 
covered  here  with  vine,  there  sending 
out  shoots.  On  every  side  the  ere  while 
uniformity  disappears  and  gives  place 
to  the  irregularities  of  a  changing  sky- 
line. With  what  travail  and  destructive- 
ness  does  the  new  emerge  from  the  old. 
Only  the  ground-plan  of  life  remains 
the  same. 

Upon  the  sea  of  existence  there  is 
never  calm,  save  where  by  chance 
amidst  its  smoother  waters  some  glassy 
lagoon  is  for  the  moment  exempted  by 
the  air.  All  apparent  peace  is  speedily 

[109] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

shattered  by  the  breath  of  disturbance 
or  ploughed  by  the  storm-share  of  ex- 
perience. No  sooner  do  conditions  ap- 
pear fixed  than  a  fresh  burst  of  un- 
settlement  overwhelms  them.  Every 
Sunday  of  repose  is  followed  by  a  Mon- 
day of  upheaval. 

There  is  no  structure  that  the  sheriff 
of  time  does  not  one  day  enter  and  put 
up  to  the  competitive  bidding  of  de- 
struction. The  tragic  touches  the  com- 
monplace and  makes  it  gasp.  To  the 
wailing  of  the  wind  all  objects  lend 
their  note  of  sympathy:  the  bow  of 
pain  is  drawn  by  the  merest  breeze 
across  the  viol  of  the  pine.  Into  our 
little  lot  comes  fate,  enacting  its  great 
drama  upon  the  very  boards  of  routine. 
Who  is  there  but  tastes  some  of  the 
bliss,  some  of  the  agony  of  existence; 
from  its  beauty  when  is  its  hideousness 
long  absent?  Life  is  to  each  a  com- 

[110] 


UNIVERSALITIES 

posite  of  loveliness  that  gives  itself  and 
of  dreadfulness  against  which  he  must 
guard.  Destiny  has  in  store  for  every- 
thing, however  secure-seeming,  a  day 
of  wrath,  a  day  of  mourning,  when  we 
shall  be  convulsed  with  the  terror  of  its 
loss.  The  pick  and  flame  of  event  re- 
moves all  to  make  room  for  the  coming. 

Eating  at  the  heart  of  all  things  is 
the  canker-worm  of  change;  what  then 
can  be  permanent  save  change  itself 
and  Him  that  allotted  to  it  its  task? 
Yet  despite  the  universality  of  move- 
ment mankind  lives  on  unmoved. 
Laughter  hears  not  the  groans  of  the 
dying,  nor  does  health  behold  the  mis- 
ery of  the  sick.  Over  the  bones  of  the 
past,  life  spreads  the  surface  of  its  gay- 
ety,  and  suns  itself  beneath  the  palms 
of  warm  security  in  plain  view  of  fate's 
Alpine  snows. 

No  astronomy  cures  us  of  regarding 
[ill] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ourselves  as  fixed  and  central  in  the 
firmament  of  being.  Man  dwells  on  a 
crust  of  earth  interposed  between  erup- 
tive inner  fires  and  the  deadly  outer 
cold  of  emptiness;  established  upon  a 
little  spot  surrounded  by  engulfing  seas 
and  bounded  north  and  south  by  the 
fatal  poles ;  clinging  to  a  whirling  earth 
that  rushes  around  an  unfixed  sun; 
himself  the  occupant  of  a  time-set  body 
— and  prates  forsooth  of  safety  and  rest. 
In  the  space  of  our  brief  outing  the  bird 
is  hatched  and  fledged;  the  tick  of  our 
watch  measures  the  span  of  the  midget's 
life — yet  we  say:  *  There's  plenty  of 
time.' 

Strewn  about  us  lies  the  scaffold  of 
creation.  Animate  nature  confronts  us 
in  every  conceivable  form  and  activ- 
ity— flying,  crawling,  walking;  timid 
or  friendly  or  ferocious;  sullen  or  vocal. 
Few  rungs  of  the  ladder  of  life  are  miss- 

[112] 


UNIVERSALITIES 

ing.  And  everywhere  creation  is  still 
incomplete  and  in  process;  nature  is 
still  bringing  forth  the  offspring  of  the 
first  cause.  Mankind  has  yet  to  body 
forth  the  angelic  face  and  the  divine 
heart.  The  years  are  making  new  be- 
ings of  us;  the  ages  of  men  are  the 
generations  of  God.  We  creatures  are 
the  route,  each  of  a  particular  line  of 
development,  which  by  means  of  our 
consciousness  is  ever  being  drawn  on  to 
its  culmination.  In  far  perspective  may 
be  seen  the  horizon-line  where  minds 
meet  and  souls  merge  in  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  humanity. 

Daily  the  world  unrolls  its  wonders 
anew,  and  yearly  tells  over  the  beads 
of  its  phases.  Life  is  in  universal  com- 
munication on  every  side:  whichever 
way  we  turn  are  the  infinities.  The 
water  that  I  watch  in  the  brook  is  ocean- 
bound,  soon  to  wash  salt  shores; 
[US] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

fresh  off  Mars  comes  the  air  that  fans 
me.  The  very  earth  at  my  feet  is  a 
scion  of  the  sun,  and  the  light  of  com- 
mon day  is  the  breaking  surf  of  aeons 
and  immensity.  In  an  unbroken  chain 
of  causation  the  universe  stretches  back 
to  its  beginning,  and  is  in  full  mobiliza- 
tion toward  its  far-off  end.  What  is 
existence  as  we  gaze  out  upon  it  but  a 
moment's  stage  of  an  infinite  progress 
— its  pillars  of  permanence  but  our  in- 
stantaneous impression  of  a  steady 
march  in  all  its  ranks  from  the  dawn  of 
time  to  the  last  day?  The  world  is 
drawn  from  under  our  feet  as  we  stand, 
and  we  must  tread  merely  to  keep  our 
relative  position  in  it. 

We  look  up  through  an  unmurmur- 
ing sea  of  space  past  the  steady,  flash- 
less  light-houses  of  its  headlands,  and 
see  that  except  for  the  spinning  of  the 
spheres  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  or 

[114] 


UNIVERSALITIES 

even  constitute  Time  but  that  all  is  one 
long  continuity  of  light.  The  causa- 
tive sequence  threading  the  present 
with  all  that  is  past  or  still  to  come,  is 
in  truth  the  co-temporaneousness  of 
eternity.  In  the  flux  of  event  existence 
seems  fleeting;  but  among  the  tracts  of 
timelessness  it  has  no  transience  at  all. 
Coexistence  is  the  only  real  chronology. 
Consciousness  because  caught  up  with 
and  accompanying  change  is  incapa- 
ble of  perceiving  continuance,  yet  is  it- 
self the  immanence  of  the  changeless. 


[115] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

SELF  -  CONFIDENCE  inoculates 
with  its  greatness  and  makes  us 
rise  to  its  stature.  We  live  up  or 
down  to  our  conception  of  ourselves: 
the  inner  picture  projects  itself  into 
conduct.  A  good  opinion  of  one's  self 
is  necessary  to  the  deserving  of  it; 
handsome-is  may  look  at  the  mirror, 
but  handsome-does  cannot  afford  to. 
We  thrive  only  when  we  entertain  such 
idea  of  our  importance  as  makes  us  pro- 
lific; all  minds  have  need  of  some  fer- 
tilizer of  conceit.  Those  who  believe  in 
us  energize  us  because  they  inculcate 
a  similar  belief.  In  order  to  offset  the 
world's  indifference  we  must  keep  our 
good  qualities  in  constant  realization; 

[116] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

it  is  never  safe  to  undervalue  ourselves 
any  more  than  it  is  to  permit  our  under- 
valuation by  others.  We  are  infected 
by  false  appearances  whether  good  or 
bad  and  come  to  merit  our  reputations. 
To  cut  a  sorry  figure  endangers  self- 
respect:  even  our  attire  attunes  us  to 
the  pitch  on  which  we  would  play  our 
souls.  It  is  not  ignoble  to  study  effect 
to  the  extent  that  it  serves  as  an  exam- 
ple or  reacts  on  self.  The  pace,  the 
rhythm,  sets  the  mood:  unconsciously 
we  become  the  part  we  assume.  Pose 
is  not  without  sincerity ;  and  in  the  end 
we  make  it  true.  There  is  an  affecta- 
tion that  is  aspiration.  Let  us  be 
actors  who  identify  ourselves  with  a 
great  role.  Ambition  is  a  frame  that 
fact  soon  fills. 

All  great  constructions  rise  within  a 
scaffold  of  faith.    The  leaders  of  men 
are  able  to  conjure  up  about  them  a 
[in] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

belief  in  possibilities  far  beyond  the 
truth.  In  their  spiritual  atmosphere 
other  men  are  lifted  up  into  a  mirage  of 
themselves,  and  earth  swims  in  a  sky 
of  fancy.  The  superiority  of  a  cause 
transmutes  all  personal  inferiority,  and 
one  feels  and  acts  the  aristocrat  he  is. 
Let  us  await  no  adventitious  mantle  of 
authority  but  assume  at  once  the  pres- 
tige from  within. 

Unless  we  preserve  our  attitude  we 
are  torn  away  and  overwhelmed  by  the 
flood.  As  long  as  we  look  to  another 
for  our  cue  we  do  not  possess  ourselves. 
The  only  avenue  to  self-confidence  is 
self-reliance:  when  our  standard  dis- 
appears Hfe  gropes.  No  one  can  ob- 
serve, much  less  profit,  by  fluctua- 
tions who  is  not  himself  fixed.  If  we 
abdicate  our  point  of  view  there  is  no 
longer  any  royalty  in  our  acts.  To 
take  counsel  is  to  grade  down  the  level 

[118] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

of  our  good  ideas;  more  mistakes 
come  from  misunderstanding  directions 
than  from  receiving  none.  Until  we 
have  our  own  rating  we  accept  any  that 
others  press  upon  us.  Youth  is  a  frame 
house  that  has  no  equableness  of  inner 
temperature  but  varies  with  the  heat 
and  cold  of  the  circumstantial  weather; 
whereas  the  thick  walls  of  experience 
preserve  in  one's  temperament  an 
equanimity  through  every  change.  The 
years  gather  a  constancy  of  impetus  that 
is  but  little  affected  by  the  loss  of  a 
night's  rest  or  by  the  latest  mishap.  So 
confirmed  does  one's  course  of  life  be- 
come that  even  the  most  affecting 
events  lose  their  power  to  deflect  it. 

Beginning  is  the  chill  ^plunge  into 
delicious  waters.  There  is  no  safe 
casement  but  courage:  the  timid,  like 
old  fortified  towns,  are  confined  within 
their  walls  of  defence,  but  energy  is  a 

[119] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

large  city  that  overleaps  all  protective 
lines  and  relies  wholly  on  the  offensive 
for  safety.  Life  led  on  the  defensive 
cowers  and  eventually  capitulates :  only 
aggression  can  win  the  war.  Let  us 
call  in  the  flagman  of  fear  and  go 
ahead.  Initiative  protects  and  is  self- 
protected.  There  is  no  continuity  in 
clinging  to  things  as  they  are,  but  only 
by  changing  them  to  our  self-expansion. 
Advance  alone  keeps  the  old  propor- 
tions. All  rights  are  conditional,  all 
conditions  relative,  all  relations  vari- 
able— so  that  continuity  itself  is  change. 
The  departures  we  make  so  fearfully 
and  reluctantly  prove  to  anticipate  by 
little  the  inevitable  evictions  of  time: 
we  only  forestall  fate  when  we  effect 
the  most  radical  of  moves. 

Men  are  masters  of  what  they  take, 
not  of  what  they  hold.  Values  are 
learned  in  their  acquisition  and  lost  in 

f  1201 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

their  retention.  With  those  that  la- 
bour in  self-support  circumstances  are 
in  alliance,  but  in  conspiracy  against 
those  who  live  on  their  income:  one 
cannot  feel  sure  of  his  money  unless  he 
makes  it.  If  we  practise  mere  prudence, 
we  are  restricted  to  the  small  adapta- 
tions of  living  instead  of  passing  on  into 
the  wider  relations  to  which  large  activ- 
ities introduce  us.  A  studied  economy 
is  at  the  expense  of  productiveness  and 
creativeness,  but  earnings  come  through 
the  expenditure  of  these.  The  local, 
technical,  detail  information  necessary 
to  the  avoidance  of  life's  minor  ills, 
costs  the  contemplation  and  society  of 
its  major  goods.  We  often  lose  more 
than  we  gain  by  our  scheming: 
shrewdness  is  a  defensive  policy  that 
lays  one  under  a  heavy  contribution  of 
unloveliness.  Only  the  affirmative  qual- 
ities shepherd  life.  The  margins  of  ex- 

[121] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

istence  are  nowhere  so  certain  that  we 
can  rely  on  them;  between  us  and  dis- 
aster there  are  only  slender  reserves — 
of  harvest,  of  fortune,  of  morality.  A 
short  crop  kills  a  generation;  some 
error  of  judgment  and  we  are  penniless, 
some  flaw  of  standard  or  slip  of  con- 
duct and  we  are  behind  the  bars.  To 
overcome  is  safer  than  any  escape,  to 
advance  than  any  retreat.  Attack  is  the 
sure  asylum.  We  out-distance  every 
danger  we  surmount  and  quickest  climb 
to  safety:  the  hills  are  free  from  the 
perils  of  the  plain.  Upon  the  barome- 
ter of  the  soul's  altitude  may  be  read 
the  degree  of  its  impregnability.  Shade 
is  not  necessarily  shelter;  nor  does  re- 
tirement necessarily  shield.  More  and 
more  do  experience  and  civilization 
make,  men  look  to  their  own  develop- 
ment rather  than  to  any  intrenchment 
of  protection  or  prestige.  Time  turns 

[122] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

all  its  erewhile  fortifications  into  parks 
and  playgrounds  for  the  people ;  aristo- 
cratic palaces  of  privilege  are  every- 
where occupied  by  a  swarming  prom- 
iscuity. The  world  is  illuminated  now- 
adays without  the  lights  showing. 

Independence  is  a  self-conferred  or- 
der of  nobility,  and  at  once  classifies  us 
anew.  The  instinct  of  what  we  are 
and  the  strength  bred  of  its  assertion 
radiate  from  us  an  indisputable  no- 
blesse. It  is  the  insignia  of  our  due  that 
it  is  assumed  unconsciously  and  ac- 
corded unquestioningly.  To  be  actu- 
ated by  intrinsic  motives  always  com- 
mands deference ;  natural  courtesy  wins 
social  supremacy.  Only  at  the  centre 
is  repose:  the  peripherally-minded  are 
kept  constantly  rushing  and  are  ever 
tempted  tangentially  into  space;  but 
the  pivotal  are  at  peace.  Easy  man- 
ners show  mental  ease.  The  curse  of 

[123] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

the  conventional  is  stiffness;  only  orig- 
inality acts  gracefully.  They  are  the 
delightful  companions  who  plant  them- 
selves on  fundamental  reasons  and 
treat  all  incident  as  illustrative  thereof. 
Everywhere  copyists  are  at  a  discount. 
Men  think  to  win  consideration  by 
conformity,  but  that  is  the  most  likely 
way  to  forfeit  it :  the  envied  and  sought- 
after  are  those  that  are  sufficient  unto 
themselves.  There  is  no  such  superi- 
ority as  indifference.  We  care  little  for 
comment  when  we  have  once  won  some 
great  approval  that  makes  us  sure  of 
ourselves.  To  be  quietly  but  confi- 
dently self-insistent  is  the  most  effect- 
ive method  of  combating  supercilious 
ignorance.  As  soon  as  any  one  takes  a 
decided  stand  we  grant  him  a  rehear- 
ing. Steadfastness  is  a  fixed  buoy 
around  which  all  floating  craft  moor. 
Confidence  facilely  meets  the  diffi- 

[124] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

cult  day.  The  intrepid  sail  a  westerly 
voyage  and  keep  gaining  time;  but  the 
timid  sail  an  easterly  voyage  and  keep 
losing  it.  Diffidence  checkmates  every 
move:  .only  assurance  wins  the  game- 
Our  environment,  if  we  fear  to  face  it, 
contracts — and  our  career  dwindles. 
We  cannot  trust  our  judgment  unless 
we  are  willing  to  do  the  disagreeable 
and  difficult  thing.  To  those  that  can 
cope  with  the  danger,  courage  is  natu- 
ral, but  caution  to  those  that  cannot. 
We  lose  the  benefit  of  our  decisions  un- 
less we  act  decisively.  Without  sturdy 
faith  in  them  all  our  superiority  of  in- 
sight or  knowledge  is  wasted,  for  false 
appearances  frighten  us  out  of  our  ad- 
vantage. No  venture  can  be  vindicated 
save  by  backing  it  up.  The  profits  are 
won  by  a  steady  adherence  to  our  com- 
mitments, not  by  a  frequent  drawing 
out  to  try  elsewhere.  Every  enterprise 

[125] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

requires  us  to  turn  into  it  again  the 
earnings  that  accrue.  Determination 
buries  its  very  gunwale  before  it  will 
luff. 

We  live  in  such  a  world  as  we  think 
it :  the  optimist  is  fortunate  in  his  choice 
since  he  calls  his  beautiful  one  into  be- 
ing. The  flag  of  life  floats  in  the  breeze 
of  its  own  joy.  Philosophy  is  creator, 
for  the  mind  propagates  its  kind:  a 
man's  circle  is  the  progeny  of  his  soul. 
We  move  on  the  level  of  our  eyes,  not 
of  our  feet.  Existence  is  happy  or  un- 
happy according  as  it  pays  attention 
to  the  things  that  go  well  or  the 
things  that  go  ill;  though  the  dwelling 
upon  wrong  be  only  for  purposes  of 
correction,  it  nevertheless  deprives  us 
of  the  enjoyment  of  the  right.  The 
sublimation  of  good  by  idealization 
keeps  even  step  with  the  sublimation 
of  evil  by  caricature.  Such  is  the  co- 

[126] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

incidence  of  glaring  error  with  con- 
spicuous merit  that  the  field  of  partisan- 
ship is  always  free:  the  comment  on 
all  things  is  antiphonal.  It  is  chiefly 
misgiving  about  ourselves  that  makes 
us  critical  of  others,  just  as  most  posi- 
tiveness  is  a  mere  whistling  to  keep  up 
the  courage  of  some  doubt.  When 
we  are  sure  of  our  position  we  are 
lenient:  men  are  intolerant  simply  in 
self-defence.  Our  own  character  is  the 
advocatus  diaboli  that  keeps  down  the 
roll  of  saints. 

Confidence  is  by  nature  triumphant 
and  has  won  already.  Dejection  looks 
at  the  ground  and  denies  the  heavens; 
but  courage  sweeps  the  sky.  Of  a  piece 
with  God's  mercy  is  the  heart's  undis- 
may  at  its  sin;  and  its  resiliency  after 
every  fall  is  an  earnest  of  God's  for- 
giveness. In  the  proven9al  of  the  soul 
the  cansouns  of  Mai  are  ever  strum- 
f  1271 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ming  and  the  flower-presses  ever  scent 
the  air.  Each  morning  the  gallant 
heart  rallies  itself  and  shouts  hurrah 
for  the  hero  in  us  to-day — this  time  we 
will  over  the  wall  and  into  the  enemy's 
very  stronghold.  The  event  telescopes 
its  terrors.  Every  circumstance  con- 
tributes to  a  purpose  once  asserted; 
with  the  uplift  of  cheerfulness  we  open 
easily  every  sagging  door  of  difficulty. 
To  its  swift-moving  traffic  the  world 
instinctively  makes  way;  mankind  ac- 
commodates itself  to  the  courageous. 
Weak  men  band  themselves  together  for 
mutual  assistance,  whereas  the  strong 
impress  their  fellows  into  willing  service. 
The  faithless  blow  is  ineffective;  but 
sureness  shatters.  Fearful  age  reaps 
its  fears;  cats  and  small  boys  go  un- 
scathed because  they  do  not  know  the 
danger.  In  vain  is  the  unconvinced 
word.  There  is  no  compelling  prose- 

[128] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

lytism  but  that  of  one  who  'testifies 
whereof  he  does  know/  Certainty  goes 
straight  to  the  precise  phrase,  but  du- 
biety doubles  its  words  and  mixes  its 
metaphors.  Only  what  we  feel  fully 
we  say  vividly:  conviction  prints. 

The  world's  wisdom  must  not  un- 
duly overawe :  all  precedent  may  fail  in 
its  applicability  to  us.  From  our  ob- 
ligation to  the  special  self  entrusted  to 
us,  no  criticism,  no  approval  can  ab- 
solve. The  duty  of  self-fulfilment  takes 
precedence  over  any  of  self-correction: 
we  are  under  bond  only  to  what  we 
have.  No  opportunity  will  be  lacking 
if  we  do  not  let  the  opportune  pass. 
The  great  reproach  hereafter  will  not 
be  because  of  any  deficiency,  but 
because  of  failure  to  assert  some 
efficiency.  Omissions  have  large  star- 
ing eyes  from  which  we  cannot  look 
away.  We  score  by  practising  our 

[129] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

strong  points  rather  than  by  tending 
our  weak  points.  One  criticises,  an- 
other appreciates — if  we  listen  to  the 
first,  we  give  attention  to  our  faults, 
lose  our  initiative,  dry  up  and  blow 
away;  if,  however,  to  the  second,  we 
develop  our  powers,  grow  beyond  our 
failings  and  expand  into  our  full  crea- 
tiveness. 

There  is  as  much  cause  for  confidence 
as  for  diffidence  when  life  sends  us 
some  never-travelled  way.  To  arouse 
disapproval  or  derision  is  a  hopeful 
sign.  Only  averages  and  compro- 
mises are  received  with  unanimity;  the 
unfamiliar  truth  or  exceptional  person- 
ality is  always  a  subject  of  disagree- 
ment. On  every  important  question 
there  is  a  yes  for  every  no,  and  we  are 
driven  back  upon  our  own  judgment; 
the  world  takes  sides  for  and  against  us 
and  we  have  to  rally  ourselves  in  self- 

[130] 


THE  VOICE  VICTORIOUS 

support.  It  is  under  any  circumstances 
marvellous  that  we  should  pay  so  much 
attention  to  others'  opinion  of  us,  seeing 
that  we  know  it  to  be  founded  on  so 
much  less  accurate  data  than  our  own. 
Though  we  find  not  our  ore  at  this 
depth  or  at  that,  let  us  never  doubl 
that  the  place  is  mineralized.  In  the  to- 
morrow of  eternity  why  not  the  same 
penny  of  reward,  even  though  the  elev- 
enth hour  is  passed  and  the  noon  of 
finality  has  struck  ?  Upon  the  high 
sea  of  hope  there  is  no  derelict  that 
salvage  may  not  yet  tow  to  port.  Ex- 
perience inspires  such  confidence  in 
the  methods  of  creation  that  it  incul- 
cates confidence  in  the  results.  What 
Mohave  of  uselessness  shall  not  be 
reclaimed,  what  desert-sands  of  barren- 
ness shall  not  become  a  very  Red- 
lands  of  fertility.  Without  any  special 
qualification  on  their  part,  but  merely 

[131] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

by  operation  of  the  influences  over- 
spreading them,  the  miracle  of  the  dis- 
ciples was  worked.  Our  acquaintance 
with  the  universe  makes  us  content  to 
lie  quiet  in  its  hands.  The  landscape 
lives  on  the  charity  of  the  sky,  yet  pros- 
pers: it  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  sun  and 
rain  for  sustenance,  yet  it  seldom  lacks. 


[132] 


EVERY  END  A  NEW  BEGINNING 

THOUGH  every  transition  of  soul 
brings  an  autumn  of  fading,  it 
is  always  spring  in  some  other 
seasonableness  of  the  heart.  Contin- 
uous decadence  is  coincident  with  con- 
tinuous renaissance;  side  by  side  upon 
the  perennial  stem  of  life  are  its  ripen- 
ing and  its  falling  fruits.  There  is  a 
fatality  each  moment  among  the  flowers 
and  every  few  days  a  Fall  succeeds  their 
Spring;  yet  does  not  the  rose-bush  of 
bloom  become  bare.  Interest  is  never 
in  abeyance,  but  upon  any  demise  of 
purpose  vests  instantly  in  some  sur- 
vivor. The  sadness  of  cessation  quick- 
ly passes  over  into  the  cheer  of  a  new 
enlivenment.  Everywhere  joy  presses 

[133] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

close  upon  sorrow;  the  king  is  dead, 
long  live  the  king.  With  the  gong  of 
dismay  change  announces  the  end,  but 
heralds  the  beginning  with  the  bugle- 
call  of  exhilaration.  Extremes  have 
an  easy  transition:  even  in  calamity 
the  thought  of  the  next  step  steadies 
us.  Hope  is  the  sickle-moon  seen  at 
sundown.  The  consumptive's  courage 
burns  ever  brighter  as  the  flame  of  life 
flickers  and  goes  out.  Despair  is  the 
final  act  by  which  hope  keeps  itself 
alive. 

The  sacred  fire  is  never  extinguished. 
Though  we  grow  old  and  gray,  the 
gayety  of  youth  goes  on.  It  is  always 
the  high  season  somewhere;  always 
upon  some  coast  of  existence  the  tide 
is  at  full.  Fashion  flits  from  the  spa 
only  to  reappear  in  the  metropolis; 
life,  instead  of  ceasing,  assumes  new 
forms.  Purpose  does  not  meet  defeat 

[134] 


EVERY  END  A  NEW  BEGINNING 

when  death  trips  us,  but  the  ball  is 
rushed  on  to  others  who  kick  the  goal. 
At  the  feet  of  the  present  the  future 
still  frisks  about  in  frocks.  Leader- 
ship ever  passes  on  to  stronger  hands; 
nation  succeeds  nation  in  world  su- 
premacy. The  flourishing  periods  of 
civilization  are  not  overwhelmed  in  the 
ensuing  chaos,  but,  though  lying  long 
hidden  in  monasteries  and  libraries, 
come  to  light  again  in  new  lands  and 
under  changed  conditions.  There  are 
few  phases  of  our  personal  experience, 
few  factors  in  the  world's  affairs  for 
which  life  has  not  an  understudy  ready. 
No  star  sinks  but  another  rises.  And 
though  the  earth  should  slip  into  the 
sea,  it  would  be  but  to  raise  up  a  new 
continent  elsewhere. 

Truth  is  a  tenant  that  survives  the 
destruction  of  its  every  habitation: 
concepts  do  not  cease  with  the  objects 

[135] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  once  embodied  and,  as  we  thought, 
conditioned  them.  No  inundation  of 
barbarism,  no  French  Revolution  of 
effacement,  has  ever  left  the  spirit  ex- 
tinct or  prevented  its  rekindling  on  the 
morrow.  Through  every  flood  of  sub- 
mersion, some  small  ark  of  survival  has 
conserved  a  saving  remnant  of  continu- 
ity sufficient  to  re-people  life.  Faith 
driven  from  its  earlier  abodes  takes  ref- 
uge in  a  larger  outlook.  However  much 
creeds  may  crumble,  sacredness  is  not 
left  without  attribution.  Shrines  rise  at 
large  and  grant  sanctuary  to  our  evicted 
reverence;  worship  finds  new  temples 
opened  to  it.  Most  reformations  of 
error,  most  extensions  of  truth  are  the 
asylum  sought  by  an  exiled  spirit:  the 
vaster  regions  of  verity  have  generally 
been  colonized  by  those  for  whom  there 
was  no  longer  room  in  the  old  home 
of  faith. 

[136] 


EVERY  END  A  NEW  BEGINNING 

Our  tree  stands — our  leafage  strews 
the  ground.  Every  year  shows  the  con- 
tinuity of  youth  and  the  Attica  of 
time.  The  early  flowers  that  we  re- 
member are  perennials.  Age  is  an  atti- 
tude; though  life  whiten  our  visage 
with  an  edge  of  foam,  so  long  as  we 
look  to  the  future  we  are  still  young. 
It  is  not  the  step  but  the  stoop  that  be- 
trays our  failing  strength.  When  the 
wealth  of  the  forest  falls,  a  transposed 
glory  gleams  upward  from  the  earth; 
when  the  luxuriance  of  existence  is 
over,  the  beauty  of  the  bare  branches 
comes  into  view.  Not  till  the  senses 
dwindle  does  the  true  distinction  of 
the  spirit  appear;  the  thinning  of  the 
woods  gives  the  vista.  Our  physical 
diminuendo  is  more  than  made  up  by 
our  spiritual  crescendo.  If  life  lessens 
in  alacrity,  it  increases  in  fulness;  in 
default  of  the  mind's  sunlight,  the 

[137] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

moonlight  of  memory  shines.  What 
though  the  thoughts  fall  from  the  fee- 
ble fingers  of  the  brain,  the  will  itself 
is  not  enfeebled.  Health  may  still  be 
hale,  even  if  confined  to  the  heart: 
there  is  no  decrepitude  while  the  sym- 
pathy is  agile.  All  examples  of  heroic 
infirmity  unite  in  showing  upon  how 
little  perception  or  participation  activ- 
ity may  yet  thrive.  Energy  breathes 
through  the  sense  that  is  keenest  and 
sums  itself  in  one  if  only  that  be  left; 
we  grow  sensitive  on  the  side  that 
danger  threatens  or  advantage  comes. 
Spiritual  dominion  has  ever  gone  forth 
from  a  restricted  territorial  domain. 
The  soul  is  still  in  the  ascendant  as 
the  body  sets.  Death  is  a  profounder 
stopping  to  think. 

Life  reaches  its  fruitfulness  when  its 
foliage  is  touched;  the  sharp  frost  of 
experience  ripens.  Difficulties  burnish 

[138] 


EVERY  END  A  NEW  BEGINNING 

more  and  more  the  gold  of  worth; 
the  later  the  night  the  brighter  the 
stars.  It  is  when  we  notice  the  crude- 
ness  and  garishness  of  the  young  that 
we  realize  how  time  has  matured  and 
tempered  us.  Efflorescence  bespeaks 
only  a  temporary  mood,  but  the  tree 
of  character  is  the  permanent  expres- 
sion of  the  heart.  With  the  increase  of 
our  own  competence  the  conduct  of  af- 
fairs appears  to  devolve  upon  incom- 
petent shoulders.  To-day  seems  less, 
because  of  larger  eyes:  the  landscape 
looks  more  and  more  spring-like  as  the 
season  of  the  sight  advances.  Like  a 
far-bound  train  the  younger  genera- 
tion passes  by,  its  windows  filled  with 
eager  faces;  the  elder  gazes  for  a  mo- 
ment and  then  turns  back  to  the  con- 
tentment of  its  quiet  roadside.  When 
noon  is  past  we  welcome  the  shade  as 
eagerly  as  in  the  morning  we  sought  the 

[139] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

sun,  and  nightfall  brings  the  sweetest 
hour  of  all.  The  winds  of  unrest  drop 
with  the  day.  Let  us  cease  also  as  the 
day  does,  and  gradually  and  beautifully 
grow  dark. 


[140] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS   OF 
REALITY 

C^E  in  the  living  little  resembles  any 
statement  of  it  we  ever  heard; 
all  names  and  descriptions  stop 
us  short  of  the  truth.  Experiences  are 
either  encountered  under  some  prej- 
udice or  yield  some  disappointment; 
the  reality  proves  different  from  our 
preconceptions.  Everything  is  more 
than  anything  that  can  be  said  of  it :  to 
live  within  whatsoever  characterization 
of  ourselves  is  restrictive.  We  do  not 
by  parading  our  social  or  official  posi- 
tion, however  exalted,  magnify  our- 
selves, but  instead  unwittingly  disclose 
a  collar  of  subservience.  Mediacy  kills 
the  living  verities.  Most  works  of  art, 

[141] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

most  great  occasions  come  to  us  hidden 
under  so  many  prefaces  and  expositions 
that  we  miss  their  real  significance. 
The  music  as  it  bubbled  up  in  the 
master's  soul,  so  let  it  speak  to  me. 
It  is  for  us  to  rebaptize  all  creations  of 
the  muse,  all  emergencies  of  the  soul 
with  names  of  more  intrinsic  meaning. 

We  play  life  with  counters  instead 
of  with  its  coin.  Terms  and  phrases 
are  symbols  that  no  longer  call  up  a 
picture  of  the  objects  or  situations  or 
impressions  for  which  they  stand.  The 
finance  of  experience  has  become  such 
an  affair  of  verbal  debits  and  credits 
that  we  are  surprised  to  find  bank- 
ruptcy meaning  an  empty  pocket-book ; 
nor  are  we  prepared  for  the  multiplic- 
ity of  opportunity  and  power  that  lies 
coiled  within  the  fact  of  wealth. 

Nothing  long  continues  true  to  its 
nomenclature :  reality  rises  and  recedes, 

[142] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

and  former  readings  of  it  merely  mark 
a  one-time  level.  When  put  to  the  test 
few  things  respond  as  expected:  every 
piercing  of  the  surface  surprises  us 
either  by  a  hollowness  of  pretence  or 
by  a  spurting-out  of  substance.  Never 
do  nations  go  to  war  but  some  star- 
tling corruption  or  unreadiness,  some 
unsuspected  capacity  or  valour,  is 
brought  to  light.  All  reputations  that 
belie,  eventually  betray  themselves. 
To  successors  failing  to  live  up  to  it, 
the  firm  name  ceases  to  be  an  asset  of 
good-will;  corporations  often  find  their 
very  continuity  a  handicap.  Truth  is 
a  health  that  soon  shows  through  the 
skin. 

Fundamental  causes  are  slowest  to 
give  superficial  indications  of  them- 
selves. Save  for  some  occasionally  per- 
ceptible loss  of  power  we  do  not  notice 
where  a  false  philosophy  or  a  theologi- 

[143] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

cal  error  hurts.  How  bravely  men  keep 
up  appearances ;  even  in  the  case  of  our 
friends,  we  should  never  suspect  that 
all  is  not  well  with  them  were  it  not  for 
their  inadvertent  acceptance  of  some 
assistance  from  us  or  for  some  surpris- 
ing venture  on  their  part.  One  for- 
gets that  beneath  every  fair  exterior  of 
existence  are  poor  failing  human  or- 
gans and  the  same  tiresome,  galling 
detail.  It  is  the  fight  rather  than  the 
plight  that  raises  the  flag  of  distress  and 
catches  sympathy's  attention.  Char- 
acter reaches  surface  beautification  last 
— only  affectation  begins  with  it.  The 
flourishing  periods  of  civilization  have 
not  long  survived  their  structural  stage 
of  energy;  superficial  refinements  co- 
incide with  decline.  Among  both  indi- 
viduals and  peoples  a  disregard  of 
external  aesthetics  serves  usually  as 
a  badge  of  basic  sincerity.  All  that 
[144] 


THE  AMA2INGNESS  OP  REALITY 

is  settled  on  fundamental  principles 
makes  circumstances  subservient  to  it: 
it  is  incredible  how  quickly  an  un- 
heeded voice  of  reason  can  over-run 
and  conquer  the  opinionated  world.  In 
new  countries  or  during  social  revul- 
sions, etiquette  like  everything  else  arti- 
ficial goes  by  the  board,  yet  a  new  code 
of  kindness  and  a  natural  propriety  al- 
ways spring  up  in  its  place.  Manners 
that  are  considerate  can  never  be  rude; 
nor  conduct  that  is  right,  discourteous. 
As  observation  tends  toward  intro- 
spection, so  transcription  turns  into 
idealization:  no  copies  are  exact,  no 
replicas  extant,  no  realism  possible. 
The  truth  never  tallies  with  what  is 
told  of  it:  intimacy  is  forever  recast- 
ing knowledge.  To  read  is  to  breathe 
the  breath  of  another  instead  of  the 
fresh  air;  language  itself  is  a  mislead- 
ing table  of  contents  to  the  book  of 

[145] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

life — of  which  even  the  title-page  is  am- 
biguous. More  and  more  are  we  struck 
with  the  difference  between  impres- 
sions of  existence  gained  from  chron- 
icle or  fiction  and  those  derived  from 
our  own  experience.  Reality  cannot 
be  realized  unless  lived;  nor  the  past 
any  longer  be  accurately  imagined  save 
by  those  who  participated  in  it.  The 
topography  of  events  is  fictitious. 

Theory  acquires  an  affected  tone, 
but  fact  gets  its  own  voice  back  again: 
the  contact  with  rough  actualities  keeps 
observation  vital,  conclusions  sane,  and 
ourselves  keyed  true.  It  is  practical 
experience  that  teaches  the  philosophic 
truth:  we  do  not  amend  our  philoso- 
phy till  life  itself  proves  it  false. 
Without  field-notes  art  cannot  speak  a 
living  language,  nor  exhale  again  the 
ozone  of  reality.  The  books  are  in  the 
library,  but  their  contents  are  outside. 

[146] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

We  develop  our  knowledge  only 
through  its  definite  application;  the 
mind  needs  instances  as  retaining  points 
of  its  ideas.  To  every  one  there  come 
times  when  the  medicine  of  thought 
no  longer  avails  and  he  must  have 
recourse  to  the  surgery  of  action — 
times  when  trifling  incidents  better 
serve  to  stir  the  pool  of  healing  than 
all  his  brooding  contemplation.  De- 
prived of  outward  event  one  loses 
all  measure  and  perspective;  the  sub- 
jective mood  is  the  intransitive  verb 
of  life  and  lacks  object  upon  which 
vivifyingly  to  go  over.  Though  travers- 
ing an  infinitude  of  space,  the  sunlight 
yet  gives  up  its  warmth  and  brightness 
only  to  terrestrial  contact;  and  what  is 
the  sea  but  monotony  save  on  its  coasts  ? 
One  observes  among  open-air  nations 
like  the  English,  not  only  the  tonic  voice, 
but  the  blunt  speech;  forceful  men 

[147] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

were  usually  reared  on  a  farm,  or  re- 
vert thither  for  restoration.  To  those 
that  are  shut  up  to  their  thoughts 
little  externals  become  brimful  of 
zest:  after  a  long  confinement  with 
what  a  rush  of  delight  does  not  the  ob- 
jective world  again  fill  the  starved 
heart  and  senses.  Nature  is  a  second 
childhood  to  us  every  spring. 

The  world,  though  a  place  of  known 
frontiers,  of  explored  roads  and  ex- 
ploited regions,  remains  nevertheless 
an  experience  of  surprising  resources. 
Impressions  do  not  lose  their  freshness 
nor  adventures  their  zest  simply  be- 
cause the  knowledge  or  narration  of 
them  has  lost  its  novelty :  to  live  the  old 
story  is  a  new  story.  Things  intel- 
lectually tiresome  may  be  emotionally 
tense,  the  conventionally  matter-of- 
course  may  be  individually  eventful: 
happiness  is  not  conditioned  by  the 

[148] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

cleverness  of  its  conversation.  There 
is  yet  left  us  to  taste  practically  many 
experiences  of  which  the  mind  has 
wearied:  upon  mental  crusts  the  emo- 
tions will  often  banquet. 

Little  remains  to  be  said  of  life — 
much,  however, about  its  new  meanings : 
the  objectively  dead  is  still  subjectively 
alive.  It  is  easy  for  philosophy  to  re- 
duce troubles  to  their  truthful  propor- 
tions, but  not  for  the  feelings.  Though 
existence  is  to  the  crude  simply  an 
affair  of  the  senses  and  quickly  worn 
threadbare,  to  the  cultivated  it  is  a 
mine  of  unimaginable  richness.  The 
simplest  act  may  give  satisfaction  to  a 
complex  spirituality,  or  serve  as  its 
expression;  the  smallest  event  may 
supply  profound  thought  with  a  field 
for  exercise.  Through  all  hardships 
the  human  touch  is  able  to  reconcile 
us  to  fate.  Women  atone  for  their 

[149] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

want  of  reasoning  by  their  unreasoning 
love.  Of  many  delights  a  rational  basis 
is  not  immediately  discoverable.  To 
what  logical  place  can  any  utilitarian 
metaphysics  assign  the  musical  ecstasy 
of  birds,  or  how  explain  its  effect  upon 
the  ear  of  our  sensibility  ? 

Truth  battens  on  the  trite.  The 
outworn  renews  itself  every  day  and 
in  each  individual;  the  old  rehabili- 
tates itself  and  through  some  newly- 
presented  attractiveness  wins  continu- 
ing admiration.  All  really  important 
things  are  universal  and  commonplace; 
the  joy  of  existence  is  derived  from  its 
staples.  Most  phenomena  that  hold 
the  world  agog  are  new  but  in  name; 
popular  fallacies  are  usually  but  tak- 
ing presentations  of  time-worn  error. 
Until  it  has  gone  through  every  stage 
of  manifestation  and  thrashed  out  all 
the  combinations  and  permutations  of 

[150] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

expression,  no  vital  idea  is  satisfied. 
Time  never  tires  of  the  truth,  but  per- 
petuates it  by  endless  re-enactment. 
The  past  repeats  itself  on  the  live  lips 
of  to-day. 

Most  appeals  to  sentiment  and  ro- 
mance fall  wide  of  the  mark:  what- 
ever their  medium — whether  speaking 
through  music  or  through  painting,  on 
the  stage  or  in  the  real  life  of  others 
— one  feels  in  them  a  remoteness  of 
application  to  himself.  We  under- 
stand only  what  we  imaginatively  com- 
pass, and  this  is  limited  by  experience. 
Of  even  the  organic  world  we  get  no 
true  conception  save  as  we  think  our- 
selves into  it.  Trees  are  but  visual 
images  to  any  one  that  cannot  place 
himself  within  them  and  sense  the 
branches  and  the  twitter  of  the  leaves 
and  the  current  sap.  Comprehension 

[151] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

as  well  as  considerateness  consists  in 
substituting  ourselves;  the  law  is  to 
think  how  things  would  seem  to  us  or 
look  to  others.  It  is  because  of  the 
indifference  of  those  whom  they  bene- 
fit that  mal-arrangements  persist;  men 
are  patient  under  injustices  that  do 
them  personally  no  harm.  The  active 
propaganda  against  to-day's  social  and 
economic  system  is  carried  on  chiefly 
by  the  unfortunate,  while  those  for 
whom  that  system  makes  provision 
contribute  but  a  passive  condemna- 
tion of  it.  Larger  sympathy  would 
not  only  cure  all  ignorance  but  like- 
wise correct  all  injustice.  Exper- 
iences that  set  windows  in  the  side 
of  actuality  give  us  godlike  sight. 
Herein  is  the  power  of  drama,  speak- 
ing to  us  in  the  first  person,  visualizing 
its  descriptions,  soliloquizing  its  psy- 
chology and  adding  to  words  both  feat- 

[152] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

ure  and  gesture;  we  seem  endowed  by 
it  with  the  calm  all-seeing  eyes  of 
destiny. 

Appearance  is  little  noticed  after  its 
first  impression.  Environment  merely 
dances  attendance:  the  furniture  and 
pictures  of  existence  stand  about  dumb- 
ly waiting  should  consciousness  want 
them,  receiving  from  it  only  an  occa- 
sional glance.  It  is  impossible  to  fore- 
tell what  semblance  surroundings  may 
come  to  wear.  Men  with  whom  we 
associate  become  mere  centres  of  their 
sentiments  and  activities,  and  into  our 
thought  of  them  the  idea  caused  at 
first  by  their  physical  presence  no 
longer  enters:  some  wraith  of  per- 
sonality rises  up  to  replace  them. 
The  kindly  faces  into  which  we  read 
so  much  meaning  are  usually  without 
attractiveness  whatsoever  to  the  coldly 
critical.  Beneath  every  troubled  sur- 

r  1531 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

face  of  life  we  soon  see  that  the  stream 
runs  limpid.  Even  from  the  ills  of 
existence  the  joy  of  combat  or  endur- 
ance is  not  missing.  How  simple  then 
the  recipe  of  happiness  and  how  uni- 
versally found  its  ingredients.  If  to 
any  circumstance  we  add  the  proper 
reaction,  be  it  acceptance  or  resistance, 
the  ambrosia  is  ours.  Life  must  in- 
deed be  happy-at-heart  inasmuch  as 
having  or  lacking,  enjoying  or  endur- 
ing, receiving  or  giving,  alike  means 
delight.  Since  success  leads  to  failure 
and  failure  to  success,  and  both  ad- 
vance us,  what  matter  which  ? 

For  the  inexperienced  every  moment 
contains  a  fresh  surprise;  so  contrary 
to  expectation  is  truth  that  the  unini- 
tiated find  everything  alarmingly  askew. 
Causes  seem  inadequate  to  their  con- 
sequences; details  incapable  of  their 
sum.  Upon  a  general  sameness  super- 

[154] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

venes  an  endless  differentiation.  The 
world  like  art  achieves  its  illusions  in 
unsuspected  ways.  We  cannot  from 
any  composite  of  the  traits  or  acts  that 
give  to  personality  expression,  account 
for  its  impression.  Analysis  cheats  ap- 
pearance; effect  is  always  '  value  as  a 
going  concern/  an  item  that  no  static 
inventory  can  state.  Strikingly  at  vari- 
ance with  the  internal  aspect  of  things 
is  the  external.  Everybody  belies  his 
foreign  relations :  no  visit  maintains  the 
impression  gained  abroad.  It  is  gen- 
erally some  imperceptible  factor  that  is 
the  determining  one.  Taste  turns  on 
trifles;  a  feature  amiss  mars  all.  The 
decline  of  the  day  announces  itself  in 
the  glint  of  the  sunshine;  the  autumn 
is  presaged  by  a  mere  sparkle  in  the  air. 
Experience  is  a  continuous  redis- 
covery of  the  universe.  The  other 
half  of  life  is  another  hemisphere  of 

f  1551 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

truth,  the  unfamiliar  is  an  adventure. 
Things  spring  into  being  when  we  no- 
tice them,  and  when  they  have  passed 
our  door  are  past.  New  knowledge 
is  the  more  operative — hence  the  con- 
vert's zeal.  What  we  have  just  be- 
come aware  of  has  just  happened.  It 
is  always  the  hour  that  last  struck. 
Unconsciously  we  compare  the  state  of 
affairs  to-day  with  that  obtaining  on 
our  first  acquaintance  with  them,  as  if 
thereby  some  absolute  measure  of  their 
development  and  change  were  arrived 
at:  there  seems  to  have  been  no  reality 
back  of  our  own  recollection  of  it. 
Modern  times  begin  with  childhood — 
however  much  to  our  fathers'  age  those 
seemed  the  latter  days.  When  another 
leaves  there  is  simply  one  less,  but 
when  we  leave  the  world  ceases. 

As  our  thought  of  the  existent  is  in- 
exact, so  is  our  attitude  toward  the  past 

[156] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

erroneous:  sentiment  rarely  lets  us  re- 
member it  as  it  really  was,  or  as  it 
would  now  seem  to  us.  Even  could  we 
revert  to  former  days,  we  could  not  re- 
live them:  the  associative  and  im- 
aginative centre  of  outlook  has  shifted, 
and  we  should  search  for  it  in  vain 
among  the  surroundings  and  condi- 
tions in  which  it  once  existed.  Not 
from  early  scenes  or  experiences  are 
the  early  impressions  to  be  regained, 
but  rather  from  such  as  now  bear  to 
us  the  same  ratio :  the  last  is  always  the 
nearest  counterpart  of  the  first.  The 
joys  and  sorrows  of  memory  may  both 
exceed  and  fall  short  of  their  originals, 
seldom,  however,  do  they  correspond. 
How  difficult  it  is  to  keep  the  critical 
faculty  free  from  the  fluctuations  of 
acumen.  Failings  and  advantages  are 
set  down  as  characteristic  of  those  per- 
sons or  places  among  whom  by  chance 

[157] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

we  first  observe  them,  even  though 
they  may  be  everywhere  prevalent. 
Facts  alter  with  our  estimate  of  them. 
We  do  not  notice  how  the  few  piles 
of  particulars  upon  which  our  generali- 
zations rest,  are  little  by  little  weaken- 
ing, till  faith  unsupported  comes  down 
with  a  crash.  Among  untrained  minds 
the  objective  and  subjective  tend  to 
become  inextricably  mixed,  and  only 
artistic  or  philosophic  judgment  can 
distinguish  between  them.  Until  we 
know  our  own  focus  we  cannot  tell 
distance;  the  noises  of  the  night  are 
ominous  because  at  an  unknown  re- 
move. Every  approaching  figure  is  the 
expected,  every  sound  the  one  for 
which  we  wait;  if  we  are  looking  for 
birds,  the  flies  seem  them.  As  we  are 
overawed  by  difficulties  so  are  we  prej- 
udiced by  what  is  to  our  interest :  good- 
fortune  in  our  own  case  is  always  due  to 

[158] 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OP  REALITY 

merit,  ill-fortune  to  luck.  We  hold 
others  responsible  for  what  only  by  the 
accident  of  circumstance  is  ours.  Men 
gauge  their  movement  by  the  stream 
instead  of  by  the  bank:  envy  mistakes 
every  retrogression  of  its  competitors 
for  its  own  progress.  Both  fortunately 
and  unfortunately  the  conditions  lifting 
or  lowering  us  tend  so  to  separate  us 
from  our  compeers  and  from  former 
contacts,  that  we  no  longer  realize  the 
change.  One  is  more  ashamed  of  the 
evils  he  still  combats  than  of  those  to 
which  he  has  already  succumbed.  Like 
steam  that  is  invisible  till  condensed  by 
the  air,  so  does  proficiency  first  know  it- 
self on  seeing  how  it  outstrips  others; 
and  it  is  generally  some  incident  recall- 
ing a  higher  plane  of  thought  or  conduct 
that  makes  us  conscious  of  the  lower 
on  which  we  are  living.  From  time  to 
time  days  of  discrimination  light  up 

[159] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

our  life  and  show  us  in  what  a  fool's 
paradise  we  had  been  dwelling:  noth- 
ing so  crushes  us  with  self-conviction 
as  another's  amazement  or  scorn.  Ac- 
cording to  our  code  so  is  our  criticism. 
It  is  instinctive  to  think  the  world  of  a 
piece  with  ourselves:  to  the  refined 
every  one  is  a  gentleman,  whereas  the 
vulgar  refer  to  every  one  as  'that  fel- 
low.' In  the  same  way  tricksters  take 
the  prosperous  man  for  a  crook,  while 
the  noble  heart  reads  kinship  in  all 
eyes.  The  trustfulness  of  children  tow- 
ard strangers  is  voluminous  praise  of 
parents. 

Every  philosophy  is  an  apologia  pro 
vita,  and  usually  pro  vita  sua:  some 
self- justification  or  self-establishment 
accounts  for  the  peculiar  form  of  it 
that  is  ours.  At  each  step  we  feel  as 
if  bound  to  vindicate  our  own  course 
as  distinguished  from  all  others.  Most 

[1601 


THE  AMAZINGNESS  OF  REALITY 

attitudes  and  therefore  most  careers 
have  their  origin  in  some  early  wound 
of  the  soul;  so  that  the  psychologically 
keen  can  elicit  one's  inner  history 
from  any  little  act  or  word.  It  is  be- 
cause spontaneity  speaks  us  truest  that 
popularity  or  neglect  so  often  turns  upon 
little  unpremeditated  expressions  of  our- 
selves. We  hold  such  theories  as  best 
thread  our  thoughts.  The  world  must 
be  adjusted  to  the  needle  of  our  need 
and  its  meaning  combed  to  our  fashion. 
Personal  impressions  are  forever  seek- 
ing a  reliable  formula  to  contain  them; 
consistency  weaves  a  web  of  its  own 
design.  The  author  really  has  no 
choice  of  subject:  write  what  he  may, 
it  is  still  collateral  notation  of  the  one 
central  idea  animating  him;  his  every 
book  is  of  necessity  an  anthology  of 
himself.  Preachment  of  whatever  sort 
is  a  formulation  of  the  speaker's  own 

[161] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

experiences.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is 
our  spiritual  exigencies  that  determine 
the  special  character  of  our  religion; 
not  possibly  can  the  dreamer  and  the 
doer  get  precisely  the  same  meaning 
from  the  same  tenets  or  be  similarly 
affected  by  the  same  form  of  worship. 
The  generalizations  made  by  each  mind 
are  the  bivouacs  that  trace  its  line  of 
march;  the  philosophy  of  each  mind 
is  the  glare  of  its  camp-fires  reflected 
in  the  sky. 


[162] 


THE  AREA  OF  LIFE 

WHATEVER  its  income  happi- 
ness lives  up  to  it,  and  is  sel- 
dom more  opulent  for  any 
good  fortune.  The  percentage  of  life's 
net  return  varies  little  with  the  expan- 
sion or  contraction  of  its  business;  we 
grow  but  do  we  thereby  grow  happier  ? 
Expense  is  the  inseparable  shadow  of  re- 
ceipt; cost  quickly  overtakes  profit.  To 
pay  for  its  increased  comfort  modern  life 
imposes  an  increased  exertion ;  the  de- 
mands upon  wealth  impoverish  it.  Ease 
always  has  additional  problems  thrust 
upon  it;  facilities  only  require  us  to 
cover  a  larger  field.  Through  nothing 
adventitious  can  joy  lengthen  its  lead. 
We  cannot  have  privilege  without  ac- 
companying obligation,  nor  ten  talents 

[163] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

without  the  necessity  of  doubling  them. 
Knowledge  of  consequences  renders 
us  responsible  for  causes;  we  are  ac- 
countable for  what  we  can  prevent. 
There  is  no  self-development  that  does 
not  make  us  aware  of  unsuspected  de- 
fects and  defaults;  no  new  insight  but 
is  mixed  with  some  disillusion.  Accre- 
tions of  power  introduce  to  wider  am- 
bitions, fresh  jealousies,  further  disap- 
pointments and  regrets. 

The  susceptibilities  of  refinement  are 
capable  of  an  exquisiteness  not  only  of 
pleasure  but  also  of  pain ;  every  newly- 
formed  surface  of  sensitiveness  is  ex- 
posed to  some  newly-felt  soreness.  Per- 
fection encroaches  and  fills  everything 
short  of  it  with  dissatisfaction.  In- 
evitably a  sense  of  his  unprofitableness 
haunts  any  one  of  high  purpose.  It  is 
a  mercy  to  the  modest  that  they  are 
judged  by  others;  to  the  self-satisfied, 

[164] 


THE  AREA  OF  LIFE 

that  they  are  so.  Self-importance  quick- 
ly fades  from  the  far-seeing  eye:  dis- 
couraging days  are  the  invariable  pre- 
cursors of  victory.  Back  of  the  finished 
touch  of  the  masterpiece  lay  what  sense 
of  incompleteness,  what  compromise  of 
unfulfillable  conception. 

In  vain  we  add  if  anything  be  still 
wanting;  consciousness  is  ever  con- 
cerned with  omissions:  the  one  thing 
withheld  annoys  us  more  than  any 
ninety-and-nine  bestowals  please.  So- 
licitude is  a  fringe  formed  by  the  threads 
that  are  lacking:  the  drawn- work  of 
existence  occupies  us.  All  things  of 
which  we  are  sure — be  they  advan- 
tages, abilities,  merits,  friends — are  left 
alone  in  the  wilderness  of  neglect,  while 
self  goes  a-seeking  something  lost,  or 
only  desired.  What  is  matter-of-course 
is  slighted:  not  for  old  and  tried 
friends  is  the  entertainment  spread, 

[165] 


but  for  some  mere  acquaintance  whose 
favour  is  still  in  doubt.  Does  not  some 
trifling  foreground  of  risk  often  make 
us  oblivious  to  the  whole  background 
of  safety  ?  Success  does  not  necessa- 
rily cease  to  mourn  its  incidental  mis- 
takes; it  is  always  the  most  conscien- 
tious who  think  they  have  committed 
the  unpardonable  sin.  Worry  cannot 
sleep  on  the  softest  bed,  and  neuralgia 
is  enough  to  neutralize  the  heart's  de- 
sire. If  we  are  homesick,  what  para- 
dise pleases  ?  A  muscle  amiss  may  flag 
the  train  of  thought,  and  a  racked 
nerve  derail  attention .  More  dis- 
concerting are  small  points  of  diver- 
gence where  there  is  a  general  similar- 
ity either  of  idea  or  language  or  sym- 
pathy, than  any  total  unlikeness  would 
be;  the  silence  of  intimates  often 
means  censure,  when  from  strangers  it 
would  mean  merely  unconcern.  The 

[166] 


THE  AREA  OF  LIFE 

reason  we  receive  our  severest  wounds 
from  our  dearest  friends  is  that  they 
alone  have  the  power  to  inflict  them. 
'It  is  not  an  open  enemy  that  hath 
done  me  this  dishonour,  for  then  I  could 
have  borne  it.  ...  But  it  wras  even 
thou,  my  companion,  my  guide  and 
mine  own  familiar  friend.' 

We  suffer  not  the  evils  that  befall 
us,  but  the  implications  we  infer:  we 
take  the  hurt,  not  the  harm,  to  heart. 
All  unvenomed  adversity  is  damnum 
absque  injuria;  all  unintended  injury 
is  without  offence.  As  sympathy  is 
the  supreme  help,  so  mockery  is  the 
climax  of  heartlessness ;  intelligence, 
with  its  pointed  thrust,  fells  quicker 
than  any  brutal  buffet  of  ignorance. 
The  real  indignities  heaped  upon  Christ 
were  not  in  the  immediate  view,  but  in 
the  larger  vista.  Yet  the  vision  that 
incurs  the  quintessential  keenness  of 

[167] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

suffering  is  at  the  same  time  out- 
look that  derives  commensurate  com- 
fort: where  unseen  poignancy  assails, 
unseen  delectation  assuages.  At  every 
turn  superiority  both  invites  a  penalty 
and  reaps  a  reward,  just  as  at  every 
turn  inferiority  though  finding  some- 
thing to  console  finds  also  something  to 
humiliate.  Wider  sources  of  refresh- 
ment belong  to  the  wider  field  of 
fatigue;  the  sensitive  vibrate  to  tones 
both  above  and  below  the  common 
scale  of  perception.  Though  the  price 
paid  by  susceptibility  is  great,  it  re- 
ceives also  an  exceeding  joy  wherewith 
to  pay  it. 


[168] 


THE  INCOGNITO  OF  THE 
ETERNAL 

THE  world  contains  unideally  the 
elements  of  the  ideal.  Nothing 
is  entirely  acceptable;  life  pre- 
sents itself  disproportionately  and  it  is 
for  man  to  adjust  the  proportions  to 
suit.  Everywhere  the  ephemeral  and 
trivial  protrude  through  the  enduring. 
Goodness  is  so  distributive  that  per- 
fection can  only  be  collective;  there  is 
no  tenable  philosophy  or  abiding  dream 
except  an  eclecticism  of  all  that  does 
not  clash.  Mass  makes  good  every  dis- 
crepancy of  part,  and  in  totals  is  found 
a  meaning  at  which  the  units  had  not 
hinted.  Truth  and  beauty  pervade  all 
things,  albeit  mixed  with  much  dross; 
it  is  by  virtue  of  its  grain  of  wisdom  that 

[169] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

foolishness  abides,  of  its  spark  of  vital- 
ity that  evil  persists.  The  small  kernel 
of  worth  is  always  found  within  the 
prickly  burr  of  idiosyncrasies;  there 
ripen  for  us  no  sweet  fruits  that  do  not 
have  some  harsh  core  or  rough  surface 
that  are  as  it  were  the  still  unremoved 
scaffold  of  their  creation.  Life  is  at 
best  a  rich  milk — we  get  the  cream  only 
by  the  separator  of  effort.  Experience 
is  a  small  payment  on  account  of  per- 
fection. 

We  cull  good  from  every  encounter 
and  reap  the  normal  out  of  the  erratic, 
ill-adjusted  world.  Success  is  merely 
the  effect  total  of  a  thousand  defeats. 
Despite  every  defection  at  its  critical 
moments,  every  recoil  from  its  great 
task,  how  smoothly  life  goes  on.  Out- 
side the  walls  of  confinement  and 
suffering  the  world  still  laughs.  We 
are  amazed  that  nature  can  be  so  beau- 

[170] 


THE  INCOGNITO  OF  THE  ETERNAL 

tiful  in  the  face  of  all  our  sorrow  and 
our  sin.  Into  the  very  Pincio  of  sunshine 
floats  the  carbolic  of  pain.  May  not 
the  music  of  the  heart  be  but  the  sad 
alto  that  threads  its  way  through  a 
larger  harmony  in  which  it  is  itself  un- 
heard ?  Even  now  the  ear  of  ideality 
catches  strains  of  life's  symphony.  How 
miserable  the  condition  of  humanity, 
yet  how  great  is  man;  considering  the 
ugliness  and  imbecility  of  individuals, 
it  is  marvellous  how  orderly  and  beau- 
tiful in  many  of  its  relationships  the 
world  already  is.  The  orchestra  is  pro- 
phetic of  the  completely  socialized  state 
— what  shall  not  the  orchestration  of 
mankind  finally  produce! 

To  perceive  the  symbolism  of  exist- 
ence is  to  see  it  in  its  integral  connec- 
tions; metaphor  is  the  natural  medium 
of  insight  and  therefore  the  language 
of  all  large  thought.  What  we  make 

[171] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

resound  with  its  fulness  of  meaning, 
abides;  we  sublimate  the  moment  by 
discerning  its  motif.  Let  us  keep  life 
constantly  at  its  relevant  point:  there 
alone  are  we  central  where  the  mind 
feels  its  radius.  No  situation  presents 
itself  that  will  not  if  we  are  keenly  alive 
to  it  stand  and  deliver  a  benefit.  Un- 
less we  wrestle  with  the  immediate,  we 
do  not  wrest  from  it  its  blessing;  all 
things  pass  prematurely  if  without 
profit. 

Did  we  but  give  our  whole  attention 
to  the  moment  and  the  me,  we  should 
have  great  news  to  tell.  Diogenes  in 
the  sunlight  awake,  the  darky  in  the 
sunlight  asleep,  mark  respectively  the 
zenith  and  the  nadir  of  existence. 
Truths  we  have  completely  felt  live 
forever;  an  occurrence  or  a  situation  to 
which  we  have  completely  yielded  our- 
selves becomes  a  leaf  of  classic  memory. 

[172] 


THE  INCOGNITO  OF  THE  ETERNAL 

What  an  unfading  experience  is  travel 
for  the  sensitive.  As  small  parks  are 
the  city's  points  of  self-consciousness, 
so  do  the  hours  spent  in  roaming  or 
reflection  co-ordinate  life.  To  have 
realized  the  moment  is  to  have  been  on 
the  mount.  Every  flight  from  distrac- 
tion is  a  Hegira  from  which  the  soul 
dates  a  new  epoch. 

How  much  greater  is  the  occasion's 
yield  than  any  we  ever  gather  from  it. 
As  there  is  no  experience  that  by  being 
taken  aright  may  not  ennoble  us,  so 
there  is  no  human  contact  that  does 
not  afford  opportunity  to  impress  upon 
others  some  beauty  of  word  or  deed. 
Life  is  full  of  mute  instruments  of  re- 
sponsiveness, tuneless  only  for  lack  of 
the  awakening  touch.  It  is  the  glory 
of  literature  that  it  lifts  from  mankind 
the  burden  of  its  inarticulateness  and 
clears  the  channels  of  its  emotion.  In- 

[173] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

dispensable  to  the  world  is  every  one 
if  he  but  make  of  his  soul  a  centre  of 
high  thought,  of  his  hands  implements 
of  helpful  acts.  By  such  conduct  may 
we,  even  according  to  socialistic  stand- 
ards, qualify  ourselves  up  to  any  favours 
of  fortune  and  feel  sure  of  having  ren- 
dered full  equivalent  for  any  liveli- 
hood we  receive. 

Nothing  unworthy  survives  its  de- 
standardization  :  we  rid  ourselves  of  all 
we  characterize,  and  by  applying  to  evil 
the  name  it  deserves  set  truth  straight. 
Men  are  detained  from  perfection  only 
through  oversight  of  the  detention; 
the  same  observation  of  faults  that, 
applied  to  others,  makes  us  good  critics, 
would,  if  directed  selfward,  make  us 
creative.  Whenever  we  are  so  circum- 
stanced as  to  perceive  our  defects,  we 
amplify  ourselves  to  avoid  them.  Dis- 
establishment withdraws  adventitious 

[174] 


THE  INCOGNITO  OF  THE  ETERNAL 

support  and  puts  every  structure  to  its 
own  proof.  We  move  instinctively  to 
the  removal  of  the  admittedly  objec- 
tionable: faults  generally  lurk  behind 
some  non-confrontation.  At  the  call  of 
conscious  ignorance  comes  wisdom: 
the  delimitation  of  knowledge  expands 
it.  Even  vagueness,  if  it  formulates  it- 
self, vanishes;  and  confusion  clarifies 
by  the  mere  attempt  at  statement. 
Just  as  any  dissimulation  will  cripple 
the  entire  character,  so  by  self-confes- 
sion our  whole  value  is  made  available. 
Only  those  that  pierce  to  the  mean- 
ing of  things  are  moved  by  them,  and 
in  turn  can  move  others  by  means  of 
them.  To  seize  the  idea  is  to  take 
the  very  citadel  of  a  subject;  to  per- 
ceive a  person's  rationale  is  to  possess 
the  secret  of  influencing  him.  We  can- 
not, unless  we  see  the  intrinsic,  note 
the  type,  and  so  be  capable  of  discard- 

[175] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ing  the  unessential.  It  is  always  neces- 
sary in  singling  out  the  salient  fact 
to  apply  insight,  exclusion  and  finally 
emphasis.  What  fills  the  universe  in 
its  detail  of  elaboration,  is  in  concep- 
tion but  an  idea,  in  utterance  but  a 
word.  Comprehensive  minds  are  those 
that  can  focus  perception  to  a  point, 
for  only  unity  can  be  grasped;  the 
mental  scene  is  not  describable  till  it 
contracts  to  a  single  impression.  The 
preliminary  to  all  artistic  treatment  of 
experience  Is  the  condensation  of  it. 
Terseness  talks :  how  clear  and  cool  are 
the  scant  words  that  issue  from  the  hard 
rock  of  action.  We  build  for  endurance 
with  the  tight-pressed  brick  of  speech. 
Art  pushes  behind  every  sight  or 
sound  to  its  secret,  behind  the  sensed 
to  the  suggested,  behind  appearance 
to  the  truth;  its  search  is  ever  for  the 

permanent  yet  unlocalized,  for  the  fleet- 
[176] 


THE  INCOGNITO  OF  THE  ETERNAL 

ing  yet  not  evanescent.  It  perceives 
the  otherwise  imperceptible:  now  here, 
now  there,  it  follows  up  glimpses  of 
elusive  beauty.  Not  all  are  suscepti- 
ble to  messages  out  of  the  blue;  only 
by  those  that  have  the  cipher  is  the 
flash  of  the  mystic  heliograph  under- 
stood. The  world  takes  note  only  of 
the  obvious — it  is  for  art  to  make  the 
ideal  seem  so. 

Time  enacts  the  abiding  moments  of 
eternity:  the  cleavage  of  the  finite 
shows  the  grain  of  the  infinite.  By 
virtue  of  some  transcendent  partici- 
pation is  it  that  the  past  persists:  the 
sacredness  of  memories  bears  true  tes- 
timony to  their  character.  Though 
there  is  a  definite  point  of  embarkation, 
the  sea  is  boundless,  the  voyage  end- 
less. Implicated  in  the  passing  mo- 
ment are  more  than  its  fortuitous  cir- 
cumstances and  mortal  actors:  among 

[177] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

them  moves  'a  fourth  like  unto  the  son 
of  God.'  Some  enduring  element  of 
ineffable  meaning  is  infused  into  the 
transitory,  bidding  all  it  touches  live. 
Though  whole  regions  of  the  bygone 
are  submerged,  yet  specific  instants 
stand  out  in  single  salience;  though 
matters  of  day-in,  day-out  repetition 
are  extinct,  some  unique  experience 
still  flashes  like  a  far-off  peak  in 
the  unceasing  light  of  reality.  Not 
merely  mythical  nor  yet  ended  is  that 
heroic  age  in  which  immortals  as- 
sumed the  flesh  of  detail  and  partici- 
pated in  mortal  action.  Better  did 
bards  sing  the  truth  than  literalists 
now  record  it.  The  glory  of  earth  is 
the  furnishing  of  heaven.  Epic  deeds, 
winged  words,  illuminating  thoughts, 
illustrious  scenes,  illimitable  music — 
these  though  they  happen  in  time 
dwell  in  eternity. 

[178] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

GROWTH  is  the  natural  push  of 
being :  all  advance  comes  of  the 
forward  movement  of  the  heart. 
If  we  but  gave  ourselves  up  to  our  good, 
men  would  have  little  to  complain  of 
our  evil.  We  flower  when  we  flourish. 
As  with  nations  so  with  individuals, 
progress  is  chiefly  due  to  the  develop- 
ment of  natural  advantages.  Every 
obedience  to  fundamental  impulse  ex- 
pands us:  on  the  appearance  of  our 
power  our  frailties  take  themselves 
off.  Weeding  is  but  negative  garden- 
ing— conscience  but  a  necessary  evil. 
To  diverge  from  self-development  is  to 
cheat  both  ourselves  and  the  world: 
continual  struggle  wastes  the  profita- 

[179] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

bleness  of  strength.  Never  mind  what 
is  not  ours,  so  much  as  what  is;  plenty 
can  do  what  we  cannot,  few  what  we 
can.  Let  us  leave  the  little  berries  of 
difficulty  until  we  have  first  gathered  the 
large  refreshing  fruit  of  spontaneity. 

Nature  corrects  without  even  so  much 
as  an  admission  of  error;  she  restores 
without  wrench  and  destroys  without 
waste.  By  mere  emphasis  on  the  beau- 
tiful she  obliterates  the  ugly;  by  mere 
urgence  of  the  good  she  blots  out  the 
bad.  Reform,  if  it  were  equally  wise, 
would  spare  itself  much  destructive- 
ness  of  method.  There  is  no  way  of 
keeping  down  the  weeds  but  by  a 
sturdier  growth.  To  feel  the  full  load 
of  one's  faults  may  give  the  repentance 
that  regrets  but  not  the  penitence 
that  replaces.  Better  than  upbraiding 
ourselves  for  wrong  is  an  increased  dili- 
gence for  right. 

[180] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

We  pull  life  further  than  we  push  it. 
Though  there  is  a  moral  prejudice  in 
favour  of  the  onerous,  efficiency  soon 
perceives  the  error.  A  higher  law  bids 
us  favour  ourselves:  the  irksome  is 
usually  the  unsuitable.  Occasions  for 
fortitude  or  endurance  are  not  to  be 
commended  merely  because  the  quali- 
ties themselves  are:  effort  is  a  noise 
that  indicates  obstruction  rather  than 
accomplishment.  The  brawling  brook 
of  difficulty  contests  each  inch,  but 
the  brimming  river  of  ease  is  noise- 
less. 

Out  of  the  indigenous  and  autoch- 
thonous joy  of  existence,  art  derives  its 
colour,  religion  its  occasion.  Enjoy- 
ment is  but  cosmic  courtesy  and  a 
very  essential  to  all  gratitude.  A  gay 
heart  reassures  philosophy  and  restores 
faith.  The  only  real  tragedy  in  life  is 
the  failure  of  its  power  to  please. 

[181] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

The  sky  of  serenity  sets  all  the  birds 
of  the  heart  to  twittering.  You've  only 
to  hang  me  in  the  sun  and  I'll  sing. 
Most  musical  outpourings  of  mankind 
come  from  the  mere  exhilaration  of  liv- 
ing :  art  is  without  object  other  than  to 
be  and  to  express  itself.  The  delightful 
days  are  prolific:  we  are  exalted  when 
we  exult.  The  age  of  chivalry  was  the 
age  of  the  troubadours;  but  in  the  sor- 
did struggle  of  existence  beauty  is 
strangled,  the  song  is  silenced.  Juice- 
less  are  the  fruits  of  labour  unless 
ripened  in  the  sunlight  of  love;  ex- 
istence that  is  forced  develops  a  pale 
growth  and  lacks  the  fine  flavour  of 
refreshment.  How  can  we  confer  pleas- 
ure unless  we  receive  it  ?  What  we  do 
without  joy  gives  none. 

We  produce  our  best  with  the  least 
exertion :  our  debt  to  the  world  is  paid 
in  the  choice  crop  of  our  soul's  leisure- 

[182] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

orchard.  Men  urge  themselves  need- 
lessly; the  horse  is  not  for  the  purpose 
to  which  it  must  be  spurred.  What  re- 
quires me  to  hurry  or  otherwise  unduly 
strive,  is  not  mine.  The  rough  road  of 
uncongenialness  consumes  twice  the 
gasoline  of  effort.  We  are  exhausted 
quicker  by  our  incompetence  than  by 
our  competence :  unworthy  trifles  spend 
us  more  than  the  utmost  practice  of 
our  powers.  If  men  were  placed  with 
the  same  advantage  to  their  abilities, 
their  differing  degrees  of  efficiency 
would  largely  disappear.  It  is  not  the 
equal  fight  that  wears  us  out,  but  the 
frequency  with  which  we  are  forced  to 
call  up  our  reserves  against  overwhelm- 
ing odds.  The  body  gives  way  not 
under  its  own  weight  but  under  the 
mind's  burden. 

Our    heavily-laden    branches    hang 
low;   we  must  condescend  if  we  would 

[183] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

perceive  or  pluck.  We  fall  to  our 
safety  and  sink  to  our  heights.  It 
seems  to  require  dire  necessity  to  force 
our  blessings  upon  us;  men  turn  to 
salvation  only  in  extremis.  Relish  is 
always  an  index  because  a  concomi- 
tant of  efficiency ;  when  freshness  flags, 
strength  has  already  flagged — fatigue 
both  averts  and  replenishes  exhaustion. 
How  much  time  we  lose  trying  to  cure 
our  lame  thoughts  instead  of  fostering 
our  agile  ones.  The  pure  ore  of  our 
value  is  reduced  at  lowest  cost;  let 
us  devote  our  energy  to  development 
of  the  high-grade  self  rather  than 
expend  it  upon  the  reduction  of  our 
tailings.  The  point  is  not  to  deal  with 
our  default  so  much  as  fully  and  expe- 
ditiously  to  bring  forth  our  abundance. 
The  very  disqualification  here  is  a  certifi- 
cation there:  the  over- sensitiveness  or 
over-carefulness  that  is  ruinous  in  one 

[184] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

pursuit  is  the  very  prerequisite  to  suc- 
cess in  another.  It  is  not  incumbent 
upon  us  to  make  gifts  save  out  of  our 
surplus:  what  is  not  ours  in  profusion 
mankind  will  get  from  others  better. 
Enough  if  we  render  to  God  the  things 
that  are  God's. 

Spiritual  wealth  devolves  the  greater 
trusteeship  upon  us,  because  the  bene- 
fit of  its  distribution  is  greater.  Let  us 
not  withhold  ourselves:  the  distant  or 
reserved  attitude  is  a  selfish  monopoly, 
but  when  we  behave  sincerely  and  open- 
ly toward  all,  we  share  whatever  priv- 
ilege we  have  received.  Merely  by 
mixing  among  men,  the  cultured,  the 
right-minded  raise  the  general  level. 
The  multiplication  of  beautiful  souls 
is  the  only  propagation  that  increases 
life.  Those  who  further  the  race, 
father  it  and  become  the  true  patri- 
archs. 

[185] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Action  is  happy  only  when  uncon- 
strained: though  the  compulsion  be 
but  that  of  convention,  it  is  still  slavery. 
To  prescribe  is  usually  to  proscribe  and 
finally  to  banish.  Care  constricts  at  the 
stem  and  withers  our  foliage;  conven- 
tionality plucks  the  rose  of  nature  and 
binds  it  into  a  mere  bouquet.  Better 
freedom  that  deprives  us  of  much,  than 
any  advantage  that  pinches.  The  heart 
is  no  beast  of  burden  but  a  spirited 
steed;  full  of  fire  when  given  its  head, 
it  becomes  in  harness  but  a  dejected 
jade. 

Let  us  live  toward  the  blossom,  not 
toward  the  root.  Self-consciousness  is 
a  lesion  of  the  mind:  we  do  not  notice 
our  machinery  till  it  is  out  of  order; 
when  the  wheels  of  activity  overheat 
their  axle,  they  must  be  stopped.  The 
subjective  plummet  reaches  no  great 
depth:  observation  is  cork  to  the 

[186] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

waters  of  self.  Normalness  never  knows 
its  processes;  the  best  cooks  cannot 
say  how  they  do  it.  Any  surveillance 
of  inspiration  cuts  off  its  supply.  Even 
the  technique  of  art,  though  a  cultiva- 
tion and  not  an  instinct,  has  no  ease 
till  it  becomes  instinctive. 

Power  paws  the  very  air  with  eager- 
ness. Our  entire  strength  can  never 
be  enlisted  by  any  insincerity;  con- 
scription is  ever  an  uncertain  soldier. 
We  indite  self  only  with  the  stilus  of 
delight:  to  be  spiritually  graphic  re- 
quires the  white  heat  of  intensity.  All 
joy  blows  a  clear  tone;  but  disquietude 
gives  a  troubled  sound.  To  be  listless 
is  to  botch.  Happiness  has  strict  home- 
stead laws:  the  soul  obtains  title  to  no 
more  than  it  can  duly  circumscribe  and 
dwell  upon.  Lands  we  do  not  effect- 
ively occupy  are  not  ours. 

Life   cannot   leap   except   from   the 

[187] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

spring-board  of  its  facility.  God 
counts  on  instinct ;  implied  in  the  plant- 
ing is  the  intention  to  reap.  We  can- 
not long  drag  the  anchor-chain  of  tem- 
perament; youth  soon  gives  up  the 
unequal  contest;  we  become  content 
to  climb  at  a  lower  gear.  It  is  in  ap- 
parent accordance  with  cosmic  arrange- 
ment that  the  harvesting  of  innate 
motives  should  give  the  best  results. 
Herewith  it  is  impious  for  conscien- 
tiousness to  clash.  Things  function- 
ally necessary  are  no  field  for  asceti- 
cism; we  are  not  morally  safe  if 
any  perennial  stream  of  instinct  be 
dammed  up.  Unless  allowed  its  course, 
life  will  not  keep  its  banks.  It  does 
not  comport  with  spiritual  hygiene  to 
leave  any  great  longing  unsatisfied. 
The  pent-up  fury  of  nature  stands  ever 
ready  to  flood  the  lands  below  sea- 
level  and  convert  them  into  a  very  Sal- 

[188] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

ton  Sea  of  waste.  Most  abnormalities 
are  caused  by  the  suppression  of  some 
legitimate  demand,  by  some  blockade 
of  being.  In  private  as  in  public  con- 
duct, general  liberty  prevents  singular- 
ity. Where  all  tendencies  find  free 
expression,  no  one  of  them  can  assume 
undue  prominence  or  go  to  an  extreme ; 
for  beyond  its  proportional  part  or  out- 
side its  fitting  place,  no  object,  no  pur- 
suit is  either  defensible  or  attractive: 
in  the  presence  of  totality  all  that  is 
overgrown  or  misshapen  slinks  out  of 
sight.  By  distributing  privilege  de- 
mocracy replaces  revolution  by  am- 
bition and  conservatism.  Bondage 
breaks  every  bound,  but  freedom  brings 
its  own  check:  though  form  may  be 
lifeless,  life  is  not  formless.  Courtesy 
is  but  the  beaten  track  of  kindness. 
The  very  conventions  that  cramp  one 
person  may  expand  another — accom- 

[189] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

modation  to  custom  varies  in  spiritual 
meaning  with  the  individual.  What  is 
mere  etiquette  to  the  boor  is  occasion 
to  the  considerate;  what  to  beneficence 
is  expression,  to  selfishness  is  repres- 
sion. The  right  finds  in  the  natural 
form  its  fullest  freedom. 

The  identification  of  duty  with  hap- 
piness is  the  true  commencement  of 
our  career.  Not  till  then  is  the  fight 
won,  the  era  of  might  begun.  We  fail 
of  accomplishment  only  because  in- 
terest does  not  take  hold.  Where  en- 
thusiasm and  occupation  meet,  there  is 
the  compatible  marriage  of  mind  to 
matter  in  which  beautiful  thoughts  are 
born  and  great  deeds  cradled.  To  de- 
light in  the  ordinary  and  therefore  in- 
alienable incidents  of  existence  is  the 
safeguard  of  moral  health;  no  one  is 
proof  against  undoing  unless  these  af- 
ford him  satisfaction.  As  emotion  is 

[190] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

stronger  than  reason,  so  is  love  of  right 
more  reliable  than  any  compunction. 
Goodness  is  a  tropic  that  owes  its  cli- 
mate to  the  greater  prevalence  of  sun.- 
If  unshorn  of  its  natural  attractiveness 
and  temptations  righteousness  is  irre- 
sistible. There  is  no  happier  moment 
nor  one  more  confirmatory  of  faith  than 
when  first  we  are  convinced  that  duty 
is  not  synonymous  with  denial  but  with 
fulfilment;  that  wrong  is  not  pleasant 
but  that  right  is;  and  that  thus  the 
seeming  irreconcilability  of  motives  is 
non-existent,  our  dilemma  unreal,  our 
confidence  in  spiritual  unity  unstrained. 
All  consistent  activities  are  uncon- 
sciously moral,  for  morality  in  the 
last  analysis  means  better  method. 
Health  is  a  dog  that  swims  instinctively 
in  the  waters  of  duty.  Other  virtues 
besides  honesty  are  the  best  policy :  the 
modern  developments  of  trade  verge  on 

[191] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

and  merge  into  philanthropy:  adver- 
tisement, largely  conceived,  turns  into 
real  helpfulness.  Though  commerce 
is  unsesthetic  in  aim,  it  cannot  in  some 
of  its  aspects  avoid  lending  itself  to 
beauty.  The  trend  of  intelligence  is 
toward  righteousness;  at  the  door  of 
error  or  ignorance  is  to  be  laid  most  of 
the  world's  wrong.  Stupidity  makes  for 
mischief  more  than  all  the  machinations 
of  the  wicked,  just  as  it  is  the  dull 
edge  not  the  keen  that  leaves  the  ugly 
wound.  How  often  does  not  the  nearly 
averted  tragedy  slip  through  the  fingers 
of  some  weak  though  willing  Pilate. 

When  moral  codes  depart  too  far  from 
the  quick  proof  of  expediency  and  from 
discernible  consequences  of  welfare, 
they  get  beyond  gauge  or  influence. 
In  the  tremblers  of  fate  the  close- 
clutching  bungalow  of  reality  fares 
better  than  structures  of  pretension. 

[192] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

Ethics  must  not  lose  sight  or  accentua- 
tion of  the  prosaic  cogency  out  of  which 
the  fine  flower  of  its  sanctity  grows. 
The  primitive  commandments  wrere 
also  promulgations  of  health  and  public 
policy.  When  too  attenuated  of  self- 
evidence,  precepts  cease  to  compel: 
no  sanction  can  endure  an  over-long 
suspension,  but  requires  a  visible  vest- 
ing in  fact.  If  in  the  moral  world  the 
statute  against  perpetuities  had  been 
more  rigorously  enforced,  fewer  soul- 
strangling  codes  and  customs  had  been 
fastened  upon  mankind. 

The  pleasurableness  of  primary  func- 
tions is  an  augury  that  their  elabora- 
tion should  be  of  like  character.  Since 
it  was  necessary  for  their  perpetuation 
and  for  our  protection  that  instincts 
should  be  made  inviting,  the  same 
necessity  is  predicable  of  that  develop- 
ment of  them  which  constitutes  the 

[  193  ] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

complex  conduct  of  to-day.  The  mere 
expansion  of  existence  does  not  alter 
the  character  of  its  emphasis  upon 
right.  If  life  is  allowed  to  become 
joyless,  nature's  very  beacon-light  of 
guidance  is  frustrated  and  lost.  The 
agreeable  is  prima  facie  the  good; 
upon  its  denial  lies  the  burden  of  proof. 
The  evidence  by  which  civilization  has 
sustained  this  burden  constitutes  mo- 
rality. Conscience  comes  in  only  at  the 
point  of  our  own  self-conflict.  There 
is  reason  for  everything  that  there  is 
no  reason  against,  and  restriction  has 
always  to  justify  itself;  inquisitorial 
ethics  must  first  establish  jurisdiction. 
Function  makes  out  its  case — it  is  for 
reason  to  rebut.  When  unperverted, 
the  dictates  of  desire  are  directions  of 
health :  our  wishes  point  to  our  welfare. 
To  obey  the  impulses  of  freshness  and 
fatigue — to  act,  to  vary,  to  cease,  in  con- 

[194] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

formity  with  the  ebb  and  flow  of  zest 
— all  this  keeps  us  keen  in  feeling  and 
action.  Duty  has  many  directing  voices 
and  that  of  happiness  is  the  most  au- 
thoritative; we  characterize  well  the 
apt  thought  as  a  happy  one.  Pleasure 
and  pain  are  the  potent  formative  in- 
fluences because  instinctive  and  imme- 
diate in  application.  It  is  not  by  fol- 
lowing proprieties  and  time-cards  and 
itineraries  that  large  purposes  effectu- 
ate themselves,  but  by  natural  self-se- 
quences: conscience  should  be  the  au- 
tomatic brake  that  stops  the  car  of 
action  only  when  it  gets  detached  from 
the  train  of  normal  impulse.  Every- 
thing enacted  by  the  commons  of  the 
moment,  as  restrained  by  the  senate 
of  the  mind  and  the  constitutionality 
of  the  heart,  is  lawful. 

Nature   restores   to  us   the  latitude 
of  which  a  straitened    formalism    de- 

[195] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

prived  us.  What  has  man  done  that 
he  must  forfeit  the  gladness  bestowed 
upon  his  fellow-creatures  of  the  ani- 
mate world  ?  Creation  produces  its 
great  opus  not  through  criticism,  but 
through  love — not  through  thwarting, 
but  through  pleasing  itself.  To  such 
an  extent  is  creativeness  an  affair  of 
self-realization  that  in  the  name — though 
to  the  shame — of  art  its  ignoble  disciples 
grow  not  merely  sensuous,  but  sensual. 
Men  become  set  in  their  ways  when 
they  have  discovered  the  demands  of 
their  genius.  The  skilled  mariner  holds 
to  the  uttermost  on  the  long  leg  of  the 
tack.  We  go  by  our  feelings  once  we 
have  learned  the  deeper  wisdom  out 
of  which  these  speak,  and  seen  the 
safety  of  their  leading.  The  more  we 
understand  ourselves  the  more  we  hu- 
mour self  and  therefore  the  more  it 
yields  us:  when  we  do  as  we  please 

[196] 


MORAL  POLARITY 

we  are  headed  the  right  way,  and  there- 
after go  forward;  with  normal  natures 
sic  itur  ad  astra.  A  sound  and  un- 
trammelled heart  is  the  secret  of  suc- 
cess and  happiness. 


[197] 


RESPONSIVENESS 

WHATEVER  is  sibylline  to  the 
mood  is  sacred.  The  nature 
and  importance  of  things  is 
determined  for  each  one  by  his  reac- 
tion upon  them.  We  owe  ourselves  to 
the  experiences  that  develop  us,  no 
matter  how  otherwise  adverse;  men 
often  benefit  us  quite  against  their  in- 
tention. All  that  keys  perception  or 
tunes  thought,  instrumentalizes  us ;  only 
he  is  to  me  musician  who  pulls  out  the 
stops  of  my  soul. 

Our  friends  fulfil  themselves  up  to 
our  responsiveness.  As  the  palms  and 
flowers  of  Italy  advertise  an  unfelt 
clemency  in  the  wintry  air,  even  so 
praise  makes  one  conscious  of  hitherto 
unrecognized  merits.  Traits  slough  off 

[198] 


RESPONSIVENESS 

if  sympathy  stops ;  men  finally  lose  faith 
in  what  their  fellows  cannot  see.  When 
an  influential  personality  sets,  the  whole 
domain  of  experience  for  which  it  stood 
seems  to  go  out  of  existence.  Though 
the  least  censure  makes  one  inwardly 
plead  guilty  to  a  general  worthlessness, 
yet  if  the  world  pat  him  on  the  back, 
though  for  a  trifle,  every  fault  at  once 
appears  venial.  It  is  noticeable  that 
under  the  sunshine  of  adulation  success- 
ful men  become  genial:  life,  because  a 
continual  laudation  of  themselves,  seems 
a  continual  approbation  of  others.  To 
such  an  extent  may  character  be  awak- 
ened to  any  response  demanded  of  it, 
that  upon  its  unoccupied  tracts  'Will 
build  to  suit  tenant'  might  be  dis- 
played. Mistrust  always  hampers,  but 
appreciation  brings  out  new  powers. 

Our  attitude  is  returned  to  us  com- 
pounded:   if  we  treat  others  humanly, 

[199] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

they  treat  us  angelically;  if  inhumanly, 
they  treat  us  diabolically.  Violence  is 
a  bludgeon  and  provokes  violence  in 
return,  but  considerateness  gains  the 
opponents'  favour.  It  is  not  poverty 
and  depravity  that  foment  revolution 
so  much  as  the  bitterness  engendered 
by  their  treatment.  Leave  stomachs 
sick  for  food  and  there  will  be  con- 
sequences that  make  the  stomach  sick 
for  fear.  Society  does  not  realize  the 
provocation  there  is  for  those  that  feel 
the  hand  of  the  world  against  them. 
We  change  men  little  by  convicting 
them;  but  once  convinced  they  change 
themselves.  When  the  heart  melts,  it 
moves.  Reasonableness  wins  all  men 
to  its  side:  a  considerate  majority  has 
the  minority's  support,  a  magnanimous 
government  consolidates  the  country. 
We  draw  out  the  kindness  of  those 
against  whom  we  do  not  defend  our- 

[200] 


RESPONSIVENESS 

selves;  from  an  enemy,  the  better  our 
argument  the  less  our  justice,  but  let 
him  do  you  some  harm  and  you  con- 
vert him.  It  is  according  to  others' 
need  of  us  that  we  give  ourselves; 
many  friendships  are  founded  on  pity. 
To  such  as  seek  mercy  or  forgiveness, 
the  whole  generosity  of  our  nature  goes 
out. 

Every  one  raises  or  lowers  the  level 
of  faith  in  all  about  him;  by  improv- 
ing ourselves  we  increase  the  value  of 
all  contiguous  property.  When  we 
live  beautifully,  we  beautify  the  scene 
and  comply  with  the  aesthetic  demands 
of  our  environment.  Any  deep  inter- 
course reveals  the  standards  we  are  to 
meet  and  are  expected  to  satisfy.  There 
are  books  that  begin  new  epochs  in 
our  lives.  Men  track  what  they  tread: 
a  good  act  is  a  propaganda  fidei  and 
spreads  belief  in  God.  All  excellence 

[201] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

is  a  divine  revelation,  all  hardness  of 
heart  teaches  universal  godlessness; 
the  course  of  the  world  is  felt  to  be  a 
reflection  upon  the  mind  that  animates 
it.  There  is  no  such  moral  menace  to 
the  community  as  to  permit  a  seeming 
inversion  of  the  issues  of  good  and  evil 
— to  leave  the  reward  of  right  outward- 
ly unaccentuated  but  that  of  evil  ob- 
vious. If  the  practical  value  of  virtue 
be  denied,  it  is  difficult  to  retain  a 
sense  of  its  infinite  worth.  Every  ad- 
dition to  human  greatness  endows  man 
with  a  more  distinguished  name.  Let 
us  be  lofty  and  clear  of  clouds,  for  men 
look  up  to  us,  the  years  look  back  to 
us. 


[202] 


PROPORTION 

THE  processes  of  the  mind  are  little 
affected  by  the  media  in  which  it 
works.  Unaltered  are  the  prob- 
lems of  existence  whether  to  their 
statement  the  three  zeros  of  sublimity 
be  added  or  not;  of  whatever  units  ex- 
perience may  be  composed  its  propor- 
tions remain  very  much  the  same. 
Everything  we  treat  commercially  is 
merchandise :  to  the  huckster  his  flow- 
ers are  but  a  weariness  and  a  burden. 
It  is  no  more  idealistic  to  traffic  in 
pomegranates  than  in  potatoes;  no 
lighter  are  the  griefs  of  life  in  Italy 
than  where  we  are.  The  fortunate 
and  the  unfortunate  are  equally  be- 
set with  perplexities  and  vexations. 
Clouds  of  trouble  come  up  with  the 

[203] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

sun  of  joy  and  rob  us  of  its  sunshine. 
We  do  not  get  so  much  more  as  we 
imagined  when  we  lick  the  platter  of 
happiness.  Every  choice  imposes  the 
penalty  of  some  negation;  to  be  freed 
of  fear  and  dread  is  to  be  deprived  of 
the  great  pleasures  of  relief  and  reas- 
surance. How  many  a  successful  man 
has  wished  back  the  old  days  of  his 
poverty  or  obscurity. 

Life's  altitudes  are  of  slow  discrimi- 
nation: all  hills  are  alike  high  that 
reach  the  clouds.  Others  impress  us 
unduly  by  a  knowledge  which  we  do 
not  possess:  for  being  ourselves  igno- 
rant of  a  subject  we  impute  to  them  a 
larger  familiarity  with  it  than  is  actual- 
ly theirs.  The  reason  why  men  of 
ability  appear  to  us  exaggeratedly  ca- 
pable is  that  we  suppose  them  to  be 
what  they  are  in  addition  to  what  we 
are,  instead  of,  as  is  usually  the  case, 

[204] 


PROPORTION 

simply  in  lieu  of  it.  Goodness,  if  mere- 
ly glimpsed,  is  imagined  as  indefin- 
itely extensive :  the  great  seem  unlimit- 
edly  so.  All  coins  are  current  where 
the  credit  is  once  established:  ordinary 
phrases  are  quoted  from  the  well-known 
pen.  Let  us  but  speak  a  brave  word 
or  do  a  brave  deed  and  we  are  forever 
after  lauded  for  our  little  ones.  Though 
usually  excluded  at  law,  evidence  of 
general  reputation  is  admissible  in  life 
— and  counts  for  too  much.  One  pict- 
ures another's  present  condition  as  he 
does  his  own  past,  namely,  with  the 
disagreeables  left  out.  We  see  the 
glory  and  renown  of  great  achieve- 
ment and  are  tempted  to  wish  them  for 
ourselves;  little,  however,  do  we  realize 
what  denials  and  struggles  they  exact 
— never  do  men  know  what  they  ask 
when  they  would  be  first  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  The  illustrious  career 

[205] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

gives  small  outward  hint  of  its  inward 
rigour:  to  laugh  with  the  sun  means 
also  to  weep  with  the  rain,  to  faint  with 
the  heat,  to  freeze  with  the  cold.  Be- 
fore we  covet  the  ends  let  us  make  sure 
that  we  covet  the  means  as  well.  Envy 
is  curable  by  even  a  small  dose  of  life: 
experience  soon  contents  one  with  his 
own  by  minimizing  all  else. 

The  world  rates  us  according  to 
the  magnitude  of  our  affairs;  but  our 
own  size  is  independent  of  theirs  and 
due  to  the  way  we  deal  with  them. 
Littleness  of  character  is  not  necessa- 
rily cured  by  the  enlargement  of  our 
lot,  nor  innate  largeness  lessened  by 
straitened  circumstances:  though  the 
periphery  of  experience  increases,  our 
particular  segment  of  it  subtends  no 
wider  angle  of  outlook.  It  is  mainly  the 
same  qualities  that,  according  to  their 
sphere  of  application,  pass  for  distin- 

[206] 


PROPORTION 

guished  or  ordinary.  The  commanding 
features  of  the  landscape  owe  their 
grandeur  to  position:  mountains  are 
but  every-day  earth  that  would  claim  no 
attention  but  for  its  fortuitous  elevation; 
the  great  waters  would  excite  little  ad- 
miration were  they  otherwise  dispersed. 
In  energy  expended  rather  than  in 
result  accomplished  lies  the  true  meas- 
ure of  labour:  failure  ofttimes  works 
harder  than  success,  and  weariness 
may  bring  nothing  but  discourage- 
ment. Life  is  not  an  affair  of  fixed 
magnitudes  but  of  relative  effects. 
Alike  beautiful  are  the  shadows  on  the 
lawn  and  the  sun-pools  in  the  woods; 
grateful  after  glare  is  the  rain.  The  in- 
dex of  our  pleasure  lies  not  in  the  gift, 
but  in  its  relation  to  our  wish ;  how  little 
dependent  upon  the  scale  of  living  is 
the  happiness  of  life.  We  are  as  much 
moved  by  the  sweet  vale  as  by  the  stu- 

[207] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

pendous  valley:  the  suggestiveness of  the 
scene  is  due  to  its  modulation  more  than 
to  its  measure.  From  Venetian  quays, 
it  is  not  to  the  towering  Alps  that  the 
eye  turns  with  delight  but  rather  to  the 
dreamy  outline  of  the  Euganean  Hills. 

The  differences  of  condition  among 
men  have  not  the  unfairness  that  would 
appear.  One  thinks  of  the  wealthy  and 
well-liking  as  having  first  choice  in 
everything,  and  others  as  putting  up 
with  whatever  is  left;  but  in  point  of 
fact  the  second  choice  best  suits  the 
second  chooser.  We  soon  come  to  see 
that  the  world  in  general  is  astonish- 
ingly well  accommodated.  Suitability 
is  a  tactful  master  of  ceremonies.  All 
qualities  find  their  affinities  at  last; 
and  even  inferiority  is  content  for  it 
prefers  the  inferior. 

Everywhere  the  constant  kindness  of 
life  is  apparent  if  one  but  studies  the 

[208] 


PROPORTION 

workings  of  compensation  whereby  in 
essential  conditions  a  universal  equality 
is  effected.  Insight  makes  us  not  only 
'without  hope  to  rise'  but  equally 
'without  fear  to  fall':  the  turn  of 
fortune  contains  no  terror.  Though  we 
note  the  apparently  disproportionate 
price  that  one  person  must  pay  for  the 
same  thing  that  another  obtains  free,  we 
note  also  that  the  value  of  it  is  to  each 
of  them  accordingly,  and  so  no  injus- 
tice committed.  The  cruelty  of  exter- 
nals is  neutralized  by  the  mercifulness 
of  our  reaction  upon  them.  Whatever 
we  adapt  ourselves  to,  we  adopt  and 
make  ours:  accommodation  is  a  shel- 
ter in  which  there  is  always  room  for 
us.  Every  man  unconsciously,  the  wise 
man  intentionally,  tempers  standards  to 
his  shorn  condition.  Only  what  strikes 
below  the  belt  of  our  philosophy  fells 
us;  submission,  like  a  fort  of  palmetto 

[2091 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

logs,  lets  all  cannon-shot  of  circum- 
stance sink  in  harmlessly.  The  inevi- 
table calls  out  man's  great  docility; 
the  waters  of  assimilation  round  in 
their  current  all  edges  of  difficulty  and 
smooth  the  surface  of  all  stones  of 
hardship.  Happiness  is  democratic 
and  reserves  a  place  for  every  one  in 
the  joyful  republic  of  living. 

The  full  sail  of  favour  easily  jibes,  but 
when  beating  close-hauled  against  ad- 
versity we  can  always  come  up  quickly 
into  the  wind  of  safety.  Those  in  hum- 
ble station  have  a  monopoly  of  as  many 
advantages  as  they  forego.  Theirs  is 
an  unmortgaged  enjoyment  that  cannot 
be  foreclosed.  The  great  world  must 
bow  and  smirk  and  dance  the  quadrille 
of  honour:  only  the  obscure  have  the 
privilege  of  their  own  mood.  The 
motor-car  of  idleness  seems  to  cover 
with  the  dust  of  inferiority  those  that 
[210] 


PROPORTION 

trudge  along  the  way — it  is  by  them 
alone,  however,  that  the  roadside  is  ap- 
preciated. Small  lives  like  small  towns 
live  centrally  to  their  best,  while  metro- 
politan existence,  though  it  contains 
more,  has  it  at  greater  remove.  Any 
conspicuousness  restrains  liberty;  the 
sight-seer  becomes  himself  the  sight. 
Prominence  deprives  us  of  the  undis- 
torted  truth:  we  cannot  see  aright  if 
lifted  too  far  above  the  scene.  No 
duty  that  privilege  imposes  is  fully  paid 
for  by  the  gratification  it  bestows: 
when  others  equal  or  surpass  us  in 
any  excellence  we  may  well  be  glad 
that  they  divide  with  us  its  responsi- 
bilities. All  knowledge  makes  one  in- 
creasingly answerable:  where  enjoy- 
ment may  be  had  without  ownership, 
it  is  preferable — beyond  that,  posses- 
sion is  onerous.  One  gets  the  most  out 
of  life  from  the  least  that  gives  it:  a 
[211] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

little  confers  all  without  its  care. 
Money  is  useful  only  for  spiritual  spend- 
ing and  material  saving:  its  sole  ad- 
vantage lies  in  the  opportunity  to  for- 
get it,  and  so  to  be  free. 

In  darkness  the  light  of  the  heart 
shines  bright:  deprivation  reveals  our 
true  wealth,  as  a  confession  of  one's 
ignorance  brings  his  wisdom  into  re- 
lief. Always  when  fortune  waxes  we 
fret  over  some  niggardliness  in  its 
generosity;  but  when  it  wanes  we  re- 
joice that  it  is  not  worse.  No  sky 
seems  so  fair  as  one  in  which  some 
storm  is  remotely  brewing;  no  scene 
so  alluring  as  one  suddenly  disclosed 
through  a  break  in  the  clouds.  Re- 
flections that  assuage  sorrow  are  very 
likely  to  dampen  joy,  as  a  coloured 
glass  that  beautifies  the  ugly,  perverts 
beauty:  the  trees  protect  us  from  the 
rain,  yet  give  us  their  own  shower 

[212] 


PROPORTION 

later  on.  How  sordid-looking  the  sun- 
shine of  prosperity  makes  surroundings 
that  but  now  against  the  background 
of  adversity  seemed  so  delightful. 
Praise  only  unsettles  us  and  sends  us 
overweeningly  in  search  of  unsatisfying 
external  sanctions ;  but  by  criticism  we 
are  driven  to  the  sources  of  inner  ap- 
proval. All  realization  checks  motive; 
under  excess  of  incentive  the  mind 
wavers. 

The  proportions  of  life  favour  the 
poor.  None  but  the  simple  can  face 
the  world  with  sincerity:  mankind  ad- 
monishes the  wealthy  at  every  turn. 
No  less  unhappy  is  it  to  be  exposed 
to  envy  than  to  feel  it;  luxury  must 
withdraw  itself  within  deep  parks  of 
selfishness  and  hide  itself  behind  strong 
gateways  of  privacy,  lest  it  suffer  some 
contact — and  therefore  confront  some 
contrast — that  would  accuse  it  of  in- 

[213] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

humanity.  The  higher  the  temperature 
of  prosperity,  the  colder  is  the  current 
of  uneasiness  that  draws  through  the 
closed  windows  of  its  outlook. 

The  real  miseries  of  man  are  not  those 
into  which  either  misfortune  or  want 
plunges  him,  but  those  due  to  his  own 
perverseness.  It  is  only  the  superfluities 
of  life  that  impose  its  load:  on  every 
hand  our  dissatisfaction  and  greed  com- 
mit us  to  the  defensive  of  happiness. 
We  plant  causes  whose  consequences 
we  must  combat,  and  become  involved 
in  an  altercation  with  nature.  Desire 
spurs  us  on  to  dangers  from  which 
safety  shrinks.  Everywhere  we  en- 
counter the  contradictions  of  our  re- 
quirements and  the  penalties  of  our 
pleasures.  The  sweets  that  delight 
bring  the  flies  that  annoy;  the  food 
that  fattens  tempts  the  rats  that  infest. 
Riches  attract  envious  eyes  and  sur- 

[214] 


PROPORTION 

round  with  false  friends.  At  the  height 
of  the  revelry  we  are  struck  miserable. 

To  excel  is  a  source  of  sadness  as 
well  as  of  pride.  From  ambitiously 
seeking  to  equal  our  superiors,  we  find 
ourselves  at  last  regretfully  and  vainly 
seeking  even  our  equals.  Most  posi- 
tion is  due  to  mere  survivorship  and  is 
therefore  tinged  with  loneliness.  It  is 
always  a  shock  to  discover  that  those 
to  whom  we  looked  for  information  are 
themselves  looking  up  to  us  as  au- 
thorities. More  entrancing  is  the  pros- 
pect of  the  sea  across  the  gardens  and 
palaces  of  the  great  than  from  the 
shore  itself.  We  forfeit  the  foreground 
by  advancing. 

Things  are  true  only  on  the  plane  of 
life  that  saw  or  said  them.  How  deli- 
cious under  the  awning  is  the  summer 
day,  yet  how  fierce  is  its  glare.  The 
glorious  cloud-banks  of  sunset,  what 

[215] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

are  they  when  reached  but  mere  mist  ? 
Mountains  sink  as  we  climb  them: 
the  imposing  dwindles  as  we  draw  near. 
When  our  dreams  come  true,  we  wish 
back  our  dreams.  Far  happier  is  it  to 
fall  short  of  our  ideals  than  to  have 
none ;  to  disobey  God  than  to  disbelieve 
in  Him.  Portless  is  the  sail  that  looks 
for  no  Atlantis  of  the  western  wave. 


SPONTANEITY 

TO  feel  restraint  is  equivalent  to 
being  bound:  freedom  is  senti- 
mental and  not  confined  to  fact. 
With  men  as  with  cattle  it  makes  no 
difference  that  the  stake  to  which  they 
are  tethered  is  unsubstantial.  The 
mere  indifference  of  others  is  disap- 
proval; their  disapproval,  opposition. 
Our  peace  of  mind  becomes  entan- 
gled in  the  web  of  their  subjectivity. 
The  point  of  view  of  uncongenial  per- 
sons makes  us  as  wretched  as  their  lot 
would.  All  influence  is  infectious  and 
menaces  our  spiritual  independence. 
A  commanding  personality  is  a  dicta- 
torship. 

No   one   can   altogether   escape   the 
colour  and  idiom  of  his  conscious  en- 

[217] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

vironment.  It  is  difficult  not  to  weigh 
truth  and  beauty  in  the  scales  of 
acceptability  rather  than  of  intrinsic 
worth;  the  patronage  that  mere  wealth 
bestows  upon  art  degrades  it.  Conven- 
tional standards  and  usages  are  an  in- 
fringement of  personal  liberty.  The 
injection  of  a  thought  inimical  to  our 
mood  scatters  us  and  it  is  long  before 
we  find  ourselves  again;  our  mental 
life  is  at  the  mercy  of  whoever  accosts 
us.  What  such  intrusive  impertinence 
as  another's  unsolicited  recital  of  his 
experiences?  At  all  points  self  is  ex- 
posed to  assault.  The  relevancies  of 
speech  divert  from  the  relevancies  of 
thought:  a  false  note  is  an  invasion. 
The  surreptitious  intermediacy  of  ap- 
proach enjoyed  by  letters,  advertise- 
ments, the  telegraph,  the  telephone, 
procures  for  them  a  privilege  of  ac- 
cess denied  to  personal  interview,  just 

[218] 


SPONTANEITY 

as  out-of-town  friends  obtain  a  prece- 
dence of  attention.  Of  every  congested 
life  the  problem  is  how  to  maintain 
a  detached  personality;  simply  to  sup- 
ply the  soul  with  fresh  air  is  become  a 
feat  of  spiritual  engineering. 

Not  until  we  get  beyond  the  range  of 
others  is  the  cohesive  gravitation  of  our 
own  sphere  felt.  The  strong  lead  their 
life  alone,  and  fraternize  only  toward 
evening;  but  weakness  assembles  and 
talks.  The  sole  neutrality  is  to  keep 
at  arm's  length.  Admit  guests  and  you 
admit  silent  critics;  to  appeal  to  others 
is  to  give  them  a  right  to  reprove.  By 
protracted  companionship  with  those  of 
a  different  age  we  forfeit  our  own ;  long 
association  with  the  elderly  limits  our 
powers  to  their  outlook.  Every  in- 
capable person  casts  a  spell  of  incapac- 
ity over  us. 

Crowding  kills.     Unwittingly  we  are 

[219] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

drawn  into  the  whirlpool  of  lives  about 
us ;  all  contact  invites  participation — we 
cannot  remain  impassive  if  we  observe. 
Exclusiveness  is  the  only  park  of  broad 
acres  in  which  one  may  live  spaciously: 
wherever  I  am  alone  is  a  study  and  a 
temple.  In  the  press  of  surroundings 
we  become  mere  conglomerates;  but 
left  to  ourselves  we  cut  out  slabs  of 
our  own  stone.  Nature  loves  her  vast 
tracts  of  vacancy  and  summons  forth 
from  them  her  tonic  forces.  Space  is 
the  wide  range  of  the  spheres  and  the 
open  speedway  of  light;  far  out  upon 
the  boundless  seas,  deep  in  the  track- 
less forests,  solitude  recharges  the  ex- 
hausted breath  of  mankind  with  life- 
giving  energy. 

Amid  close  contacts  the  mind  is  kept 
ever  on  the  defensive.  The  fear  of 
interruption  is  interruption.  It  is  im- 
possible to  be  with  men  and  remain 

[220] 


SPONTANEITY 

uninfluenced  by  their  opinion  of  us. 
The  surrounding  atmosphere  of  ex- 
pectation depresses  the  barometer  of 
our  spontaneity:  all  opinion  is  an  un- 
due influence,  all  criticism  duress.  The 
greater  our  individuality  the  more  res- 
tive are  we  under  external  trammels 
upon  it,  because  the  more  in  need  of 
conditions  that  encourage  and  foster 
self-assertion.  No  strong  legs  will  en- 
dure the  swathings  of  convention;  the 
wings  of  every  fledged  soul  beat  them- 
selves free. 


[221] 


PROGRESSION 

INITIATIVE  is  a  new  creation  and 
founds  fresh  dynasties  of  energy. 
None  can  foresee  the  efflorescence 
of  his  dream  or  the  fruitage  of  his  act. 
To  awaken  thought  is  to  arouse  the 
whole  mind:  the  wide  country-side  of 
the  soul  harkens  to  the  crowing  of  any 
chanticleer.  Whatsoever  takes  form 
in  consciousness  quickly  receives  the 
breath  of  life;  the  pioneer  thought  is 
the  vanguard  of  all  improvement. 
Every  act  of  strength  makes  us  strong ; 
industry,  once  will,  is  soon  habit. 
The  knee  of  power  gives  way  from  dis- 
use more  than  from  weakness.  Unless 
lived  to  their  limit  capacities  do  not  in- 
crease; we  make  room  for  our  waiting 

[222] 


PROGRESSION 

potentialities  only  by  disposing  of  our 
actualities.  Continuous  disappointment 
is  in  store  for  mere  expectancy,  but 
effort  meets  continuous  reward.  The 
incentive  as  well  as  the  strength  comes 
through  performance;  let  us  think  no 
more  about  our  duties  but  simply  do 
them. 

Every  advance  forces  us  further:  we 
move  with  gathering  momentum  along 
our  way.  The  reason  one  is  committed 
to  what  he  begins  is  that  he  is  led  on 
by  it;  some  false  shame  of  inconsis- 
tency keeps  one  to  his  purpose. 
Course  and  destination  are  often  de- 
termined by  the  mere  accidental  di- 
rection of  start.  As  every  hurt  seems 
to  go  straight  to  a  sensitive  spot,  so 
every  step  is  a  fresh  impetus  to  the 
mood  in  which  we  find  ourselves.  All 
influences  when  reinforced  by  con- 
sciousness become  cumulative;  contin- 

[223] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

uation  is  a  kitten  to  the  thread  of  our 
thought.  Perpetual  motion  seems  ap- 
proximated where  spiritual  reaction  is 
involved.  Though  all  the  material  uni- 
verse whirls  to  a  finish  and  vibrates  to 
a  stop,  spiritual  vitality  goes  on  un- 
diminished  and  conscious  existence  be- 
comes ever  more  expansive.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  full-grown  soul  were  to 
sit  upon  the  ruins  of  the  world  about 
it  and  to  dwell  amid  static  gravitation 
and  shadowless  day. 

Most  selections  are  determined  by 
accidents  of  contiguity.  We  do  not  ex- 
ercise discretion  as  often  as  we  think: 
fate  picks  our  favourites  the  while  we 
believe  ourselves  backing  fancy.  Our 
preferences  prove  little  but  our  poverty 
of  choice;  when  other  suitors  appear, 
constancy  is  shaken.  All  popularity  is 
fickle  and  runs  after  the  last  arrival; 
seasonal  resorts  are  frequented  simply 

F2241 


PROGRESSION 

in  default  of  genialness  elsewhere,  and 
become  deserted  again  as  soon  as  the 
ice  melts  or  the  sun  cools.  Even  be- 
neath conditions  most  likely  to  be  se- 
lective, the  workings  of  necessity  are 
detected.  The  friendships,  the  envi- 
ronment of  persons  apparently  having 
the  world  to  choose  from,  furnish  a 
continual  surprise  to  such  as  do  not 
perceive  the  special  requirement  of 
disposition  finding  in  them  its  satisfac- 
tion or  response.  In  the  matter  of  sur- 
roundings, more  controlling  than  all 
other  considerations  of  suitability  are 
the  needs  of  our  own  self-establish- 
ment; there  is  no  such  attractiveness 
in  others  as  their  admiration  of  us.  It 
is  these  personal  exigencies  that  not 
only  restrict  our  judgment  but  conceal 
our  fickleness.  Under  an  unlimited 
range  of  election  neither  prejudice  nor 
loyalty  could  long  survive.  Were  men 

[225] 


absolutely  free  to  choose  and  free  to 
change,  all  individual  adhesion,  all  so- 
cial cohesion  would  cease,  all  organ- 
ization fall  asunder. 

How  wide  a  difference  in  practice 
is  split  by  a  small  difference  in  theory; 
scarcely  perceptible  in  origin,  how  soon 
is  not  direction  all  determinative !  With 
utmost  difficulty  must  we  later  reach 
the  road  which  but  now  at  its  divergence 
offered  itself  as  freely  as  the  one  we 
followed.  Sweet  at  the  lips  is  every  dish 
of  delight — careless  of  consequence, 
however,  beyond  the  senses'  palate. 
There  is  in  every  new  experience  some 
accompaniment  which  we  take  to  be 
characteristic  and  continuing,  yet  which 
merely  ushers  it  in  and  then  retires. 
The  syrup  that  invites,  entraps;  the 
sunlight  that  attracts,  betrays.  Few 
routes  preserve  throughout  the  char- 
acter of  their  beginning.  In  the  easy- 

[226] 


PROGRESSION 

chair  of  indulgence  we  grow  stoop- 
shouldered,  but  the  unsupported  soul 
sits  straight.  It  is  our  sins  that  age  us 
—our  self-denials  keep  us  young. 

For  maladjustments  defeat  is  the 
only  thorough-going  cure:  to  patch  up 
a  basic  mistake  is  but  the  more  plain- 
ly to  reveal  the  fundamental  botch. 
Fate  is  kinder  to  us  than  favour;  dis- 
cipline is  not  indifference  to  suffering 
but  simply  an  agreement  with  nature's 
preferences.  Unhappiest  those  with 
the  will  but  not  the  courage  for  evil. 
Denial  as  well  as  satisfaction  stills  sense 
and  quiets  the  soul ;  each  instant  raises 
a  question  between  expression  or  re- 
pression. Experience,  the  expert  whip, 
drives  the  whole  self  upon  the  threefold 
rein  of  urgence,  of  consent,  of  restraint. 
As  nature  purifies  itself  by  periodic 
winters  of  extermination,  so  without 
the  correctional  cold  of  disfavour,  our 

[2271 


inner  growth  would  become  riotous  and 
beget  fearsome  creatures  of  the  soul. 
It  is  the  killing  frosts  of  fate  that  keep 
down  both  the  exuberance  of  life  and 
the  putrefactions  of  death,  maintaining 
the  moral  air  sweet  and  wholesome. 

The  application  of  truth  to  our 
individual  experience  oft-times  meets 
with  a  reception  far  different  from  that 
of  its  general  statement;  we  find  assent 
to  principle  not  necessarily  carrying 
with  it  in  our  own  case  consent  to  its 
particularizations.  This  is  the  moral 
enigma  which,  however  philosophy  may 
explain,  it  cannot  explain  away.  Self 
is  cloven  to  the  core  and  clashes.  The 
internal  fight  is  on,  whatever  we  may 
say  about  it  or  however  dub  its  warring 
factions.  Whether  it  be  good  versus 
evil,  knowledge  versus  ignorance,  pru- 
dence versus  pleasure,  Ormuzd  versus 
Ahriman,  God  versus  the  devil — it  is 

[228] 


PROGRESSION 

all  one  in  outcome,  extinction  to  the 
worsted  self-half.  Reason  when  un- 
rivalled rules;  but  once  treason  raises 
its  head,  so  evenly  are  the  contending 
forces  matched,  that  the  issue  turns 
upon  the  allies  called  in.  The  doctrine 
of  original  sin  is  no  confession  of  hu- 
man depravity  but  rather  an  honest 
admission  of  man's  radical  warfare. 
From  the  mystery  of  internal  antag- 
onism, the  marvel  of  our  sedition  and 
civil  war,  the  April  weather  struggle 
between  fair  and  foul,  the  mortal  con- 
flict between  desire  and  duty,  no  mere 
moralizing  can  set  us  free.  The  fatal- 
ities of  the  feud  are  spread  before  us — 
we  are  left  to  account  for  them  as  best 
we  may. 

Even  the  skirmishes  cost  their  dead 
and  wounded ;  we  fall  no  less  gloriously 
though  in  a  small  fight.  Already  on 
the  preliminary  motions  of  life  is  the 

[229] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

final  judgment  foreshadowed.  Each 
moment  is  reaping  the  reward  or  pay- 
ing the  penalty  of  some  predecessor. 
We  ourselves  evoke  whatever  reception 
we  meet  with.  The  ease  of  later  years 
is  the  earned  increment  of  early  strug- 
gle; the  difficulties  are  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  of  early  skulking. 
Large  is  the  wealth  of  him  that  gathers 
his  whole  harvest;  per  contra,  from 
every  evil  act,  from  all  bad  work- 
manship go  out  causative  ripples  in 
every  direction  unceasingly  —  some- 
where in  existence,  in  others  or  in  our- 
selves, a  resultant  ill  moves  on.  No 
one  can  slight  performance  without 
entailing  upon  the  posterity  of  time  a 
long  inheritance  of  discouragement,  re- 
sulting in  some  set-back  to  character, 
some  retardation  of  mankind.  How 
can  we  drowse  with  the  crises  of  life, 
the  crisis  of  death,  still  ahead !  Worlds 

[230] 


PROGRESSION 

are  whirling  to  carry  out  the  creative 
design,  while  we  sit  twirling  our 
thumbs.  The  issues  of  destiny  are 
fought  out  upon  a  series  of  viewless, 
bloodless  battle-fields:  in  a  succession 
of  apparently  inconsiderable  reconnais- 
sances the  stake  of  happiness  is  lost  or 
won.  Though  we  avert  consequences 
that  are  outward,  the  inward  still 
register  themselves  beyond  reach  and 
determine  our  spiritual  occupancy; 
were  conscience  silenced,  the  remon- 
strant stomach,  the  depleted  pulse,  the 
joyless  heart  would  nevertheless  speak 
out.  It  is  forever  amazing  that  we 
can  treat  so  slightingly  the  arbiters 
of  all  that  is  to  come  —  that  we 
are  so  little  concerned  to  make  our- 
selves good  company,  seeing  that  we 
have  got  to  endure  it.  There  is  no 
one  whom  we  so  eagerly  seek  or  so 
incontinently  flee  as  ourselves:  from 

[231] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

the  fearful  imprisonment  of  personal- 
ity there  is  no  escape  but  in  self-expan- 
sion. More  quickly  and  easily  do  we 
surround  ourselves  with  the  qualities 
we  like  by  living  them  than  by  seeking 
friends  who  possess  them.  We  dwell 
with  the  beautiful  by  mere  dwelling 
upon  it;  such  companionship  is  not 
only  the  end  and  object  of  all  things, 
but  is  itself  the  means  thereto. 

The  shoulders  broaden  to  their  bur- 
den: capability  comes  only  when  sum- 
moned. When  we  consider  our  powers 
we  have  none,  but  when  we  consider 
the  need  we  are  omnipotent.  The 
things  we  accomplish  are  not  so  much 
those  of  which  we  are  capable  as 
those  of  which  we  think  ourselves  ca- 
pable. The  demands  of  others  de- 
velop us:  incumbency  itself  fits  for 
office.  Spiritual  as  well  as  physical 
nature  abhors  a  vacuum:  the  soul,  like 

[232] 


PROGRESSION 

the  air,  expands  to  its  contiguous  space. 
He  that  obeys  the  call  has  the  per- 
formance in  him  already. 

Nothing  is  so  difficult  but  that  in- 
tervening events  lead  up  to  it:  each 
moment  uncovers  the  motive  for  the 
next.  We  do  what  we  cannot  through 
doing  what  we  can;  every  plug  of  hin- 
drance pulled  is  followed  by  a  rush  of 
thought  and  action.  Even  to  have  de- 
liberated without  result  or  striven  with- 
out avail  endows  us  with  new  capacity. 
In  plucking  the  one  berry  we  see  an- 
other: the  reach  shows  us  the  rest. 
Just  as  by  virtue  of  survivorship  each 
generation  in  turn  becomes  vested  with 
the  world's  wealth  and  honours,  so  all 
right  experience  enjoys  a  continuous 
accession  of  power  and  importance. 

One  is  alternately  elated  and  aghast 
to  find  how  far  the  current  of  the  years 
has  carried  him.  The  weakness  we 

[233] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

humoured  fulfils  all  we  feared  from  it. 
But  strength  drifts  down  the  stream  to 
the  sea  and  soon  dispenses  with  the 
harbour-tug  and  drops  the  pilot,  and  all 
its  lumbering  helplessness  is  quickly 
turned  by  the  fresh  breeze  of  oppor- 
tunity into  seaworthiness. 


234] 


THE    CHIMES    OF    EXISTENCE 

IT  is  well  that  nothing  abides  or  we 
could  not  abide  it;  things  are  little 
more  transient  than  their  power  to 
please.  Upon  the  table  of  spiritual 
relish  no  dish  may  appear  more  than 
once.  A  taste  tires  where  we  thought 
eternity  would  not  suffice;  days  cloud- 
less of  care  oppress  us  with  their  blue. 
All  enjoyment  perpetuated  is  lost;  the 
matchless  point  of  view  grows  weari- 
some. Man  obtains  but  never  attains; 
happiness  itself  fails  to  make  him  hap- 
py. When  we  receive  all  that  we 
asked,  we  wonder  we  could  have  asked 
so  little.  The  search  of  the  heart  is  un- 
ending. 

Nothing  is  so  good  but  that  at  times 
change  is  better.     If  perfection  is  per- 

[235] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

vasive  we  grow  restless,  if  lasting  we 
grow  listless;  from  all  sameness  we 
turn  dissatisfied  away.  Even  long- 
sought  peace  drives  us  by  its  ennui 
back  into  the  hateful  strife  again,  and 
to  a  perpetuity  of  propriety  even  sor- 
did incident  seems  preferable.  We  can 
stand  anything  better  than  stagna- 
tion ;  take  from  a  man  his  bread  of  se- 
curity but  leave  him  his  tobacco  of 
diversion.  The  day  is  insupportable 
without  prospect  of  event;  where  rou- 
tine cuts  off  the  possibility  of  '  some- 
thing happening,'  life  yawns.  Futurity 
is  a  postman  whom  all  eagerly  expect, 
bring  he  good  news  or  bad.  Where  no 
surprise  is  possible,  there  is  no  delight 
left:  foresight  and  insight  foreclose 
wonder.  Any  monotony  tolls  the  bell  of 
existence  but  variety  rings  its  chimes ;  not 
in  the  notes  but  in  their  due  and  varied 
sequence  lies  the  melody's  charm. 

[236] 


THE  CHIMES  OF  EXISTENCE 

Without  diversity  there  can  be  no 
keenness  to  perception  nor  edge  to  effi- 
ciency; and  such  is  our  cumulative 
craving  for  it  that  at  last  only  sleep 
suffices.  Because  it  kills  suggestiveness, 
the  unchanging  checks  progress! veness. 
All  normal  functions  voice  the  same 
necessity  of  diversion:  if  the  body  tires 
from  one  position,  how  much  more  the 
mind.  We  stew  in  our  own  mood  if  the 
thought  be  not  stirred;  there  is  more 
music  in  life  than  the  monotonous  meas- 
ure of  our  heart.  Expression  must,  like 
tea,  be  drawn  off  quickly,  lest  if  it  stand 
long  on  the  leaves  of  thought,  it  extract 
the  tannin  of  morbidness.  Repetition 
outstays  the  welcome  of  the  mind.  To 
insist  is  to  weaken  our  cause:  dissent 
gathers,  once  the  favourable  impression 
wears  off.  Roughness  only  raises  up 
new  opposition  to  itself  and  fails  of 
its  purpose;  but  gentleness  proselytes. 

[237] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

More  often  do  we  adopt  the  ways  of 
those  whom  we  overcome  than  of 
those  who  overcome  us:  Rome  be- 
came hellenized,  not  Greece  romanized. 
All  emphasis  of  the  obvious  is  offen- 
sive. Though  the  blatant  get  the  clap- 
ping of  hands,  the  contempt  of  the  heart 
is  only  concealed.  We  are  blind  to  the 
garish,  but  the  subtle  captivates  at  once : 
we  cannot  keep  our  eyes  off  the  dim, 
hazy  peaks. 

Thank  God  for  the  series  of  sleep 
that  sharpens  wit  yet  dulls  memory, 
and  thus  keeps  self  endurable.  As  one 
summer  obliterates  its  predecessor,  so 
each  day  blots  out  the  preceding;  be- 
yond yesterday  the  past  with  few  ex- 
ceptions is  all  of  a  piece.  Not  long  is 
it  before  retrospect  becomes  so  op- 
pressive that  we  live  wholly  in  the 
present.  Some  one  untouchable  spot 
may  cripple  whole  epochs  of  remem- 

[238] 


THE  CHIMES  OF  EXISTENCE 

brance;  we  inhabit  only  the  pleasant 
chambers  of  the  heart  and  close  all 
others.  So  complete  is  the  insulation 
of  forgetfulness  that  we  are  able  to 
move  newly-minded  amid  the  memory- 
haunted  scenes. 

The  more  versatile  we  are,  the  more 
variable,  and  therefore  the  more  in 
need  of  variety;  sensitiveness  changes 
its  dress  frequently.  Equally  neces- 
sary to  satisfaction  are  ease  and  hard- 
ship, safety  and  hazard,  labour  and 
leisure;  there  can  be  no  holidays  un- 
less there  are  few.  Though  the  fixity 
of  locality  seems  hopeless,  the  itinerancy 
of  travel  seems  useless;  the  fascinating 
map  proves  in  the  following  of  it  but  a 
tiresome  schedule.  From  the  hearth 
how  fair  looks  the  world ;  yet  out  in  its 
turmoil  we  find  nothing  better  than  to 
get  back  again.  Where  activity  seethes, 
thought  quiets  down.  With  even  great- 

[2391 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

er  expectancy  than  we  sought  the  ex- 
changes of  animation  and  barter,  do 
we  disperse  again  to  the  separateness 
of  our  contemplation.  From  all  sides 
the  human  tide  strains  centrally  to  the 
great  city,  there  only  to  turn  and  dis- 
gorge itself  out  again  to  the  satellite 
suburbs.  One  looks  for  the  white  heat 
of  life  on  its  crowded  corners  and  at  its 
congested  centre,  but  finds  instead  fran- 
tic figures  and  drawn  faces  rushing 
distractedly  elsewhither. 

Persons  that  are  always  the  same  are 
not  so  much  inwardly  consistent  as  out- 
wardly indifferent.  It  is  only  land- 
locked souls  that  keep  a  constant  level : 
oceanic  expanses  of  spirit  are  always 
subject  to  great  mood  tides.  Life  must 
be  translated  into  many  media  of  ex- 
pression before  it  can  be  understood, 
and  unless  we  vary  with  its  changes  we 
are  unresponsive  to  its  influence.  Day 

[240] 


THE  CHIMES  OF  EXISTENCE 

itself  is  the  revolving  flash  from  eterni- 
ty's headland.  Surrounded  by  such 
massive  variations  as  those  of  earth, 
air  and  sky,  shall  man  remain  stolid  ? 
Climate  sets  the  very  clef  of  mood,  so 
that  in  the  mind  there  must  be  more 
than  one  time  or  season.  And  if  the 
body  vibrate  from  buoyant  to  burden- 
some, how  should  its  spiritual  tenant 
be  stationary?  Soul  is  a  water  that 
owes  its  colour  not  chiefly  to  itself  but 
to  the  ampler  skies  of  influence.  Every 
blue  Mediterranean  is  the  liquefied 
heaven  of  its  south. 

Fluctuation  is  all-prevalent.  Inhere 
is  no  experience  that  does  not  soon 
evince  its  inclement  days.  Were  it  not 
for  our  variance  we  could  not  demarcate 
the  unillumined  coasts  of  existence;  it 
is  through  our  intermittence  that  we  are 
distinctive.  What  clear  sky  of  idealism 
but  is  at  times  overcast  and  rain-be- 

[241] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

teared ;  the  most  beautiful  effect  in  the 
human  landscape  is  the  shadow  of 
trouble  upon  the  spiritual  heights. 


[242] 


THE    OPEN    GATES   OF   JANUS 

CIVILIZATION  is  a  mere  modus 
vivendi,  and  the  existent  econom- 
ic order  a  provisional  arrange- 
ment which  is  always  ceaselessly,  at 
times  suddenly,  being  superseded. 
Live  and  let  live  is  not  yet  widely 
applicable.  Against  the  brute  forces 
of  existence  security  continues  to  post 
pickets  of  fear  and  precaution :  against 
the  untamed  powers  of  nature  and  the 
unbroken  instincts  of  our  brother-man, 
society  still  needs  protection.  The 
gates  of  Janus  are  never  closed. 

It  is  but  an  armed  truce  that  the  law 
affords  between  good  and  evil,  between 
the  classes  and  the  masses.  At  every 
turn  the  opposing  forces  confront  each 

[243] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

other — at  the  polls,  on  the  platform,  in 
the  courts ;  where  men  are  gathered  in 
crowds  or  when  they  pass  each  other 
singly  on  the  sidewalk;  in  outbursts 
of  mob  violence  or  in  covert  attack  and 
robbery;  in  the  master-and-servant  rela- 
lationship  of  our  own  household.  Even 
from  the  fireside  hostility  is  never  far. 

The  wTide  world  goes  its  separate  way, 
and  joint  action  is  confined  to  areas  of 
mere  necessity  or  selfish  advantage; 
society  like  water  though  a  solid  body  if 
opposed,  is  yet  unsustaining  if  relied 
upon.  Co-operation  is  little  more  than 
nominal;  spheres  of  helpfulness  are 
mere  oases  in  a  desert  of  individualism. 
Not  even  centuries  of  organized  life 
have  sufficed  to  create  such  a  modicum 
of  concerted  action  as  would  ensure  to 
every  one  the  essentials  of  living.  Man 
is  a  tribe  of  peaceably  disposed  animals ; 
but  beyond  the  surface  adjustments  in- 

[244] 


THE  OPEN  GATES  OF  JANUS 

cident  to  external  order,  existence  is  still 
largely  on  a  war-footing. 

The  mortalities  around  us  are  silent ; 
youth  and  strength  go  undisturbed 
along  their  way  of  health.  Not  sensi- 
tive is  the  ear  of  civilization  to  its 
casualties :  from  slaughtered  beast,  from 
slain  humanity,  comes  no  far-heard  cry. 
The  injured,  the  unfortunate,  the  err- 
ing slink  out  of  sight;  and  because  in- 
frequently confronted  with  their  impor- 
tunacy,  the  hale  and  whole  are  seldom 
sensible  of  either  their  appeal  or  their 
plight.  It  is  our  substituted  association 
with  the  living  that  keeps  death  from 
being  more  vividly  brought  home  to  us. 

Evolution  goes  on  working  out  its 
formative  designs  by  means  of  the  hard- 
ships and  trials  of  experience:  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  ill-adapted  proceeds 
apace.  Under  existing  social  conditions 
it  is  as  necessary  to  the  survival  of  the 

[245] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

one  type  of  man  upon  which  civiliza- 
tion places  its  emphasis  that  all  others 
should  be  crowded  out,  as  it  is  in  the 
animal  world  that  one  species  should  in 
self-preservation  exterminate  its  rival 
species.  The  only  escape  from  socio- 
logical manslaughter  lies  in  so  changing 
conditions  that  they  shall  themselves 
develop  all  men  into  the  desired  type. 
Until  human  laws  are  wholly  amelio- 
rative, they  must  like  natural  laws  con- 
tinue to  be  partially  destructive. 

Only  by  exclusions  can  the  status 
quo  be  maintained.  In  origin  most 
privilege  is  self-preservation,  and  gen- 
erally serves  still  as  a  protective  meas- 
ure. Priorities  of  power,  possession, 
birthright  and  the  like  had  their  in- 
ception in  and  owe  their  retention  to 
the  interests  of  order.  There  is  no 
important  relationship  or  activity  that 
to  its  due  conduct  or  enjoyment  does 

[M6-] 


THE  OPEN  GATES  OF  JANUS 

not  find  imperative  the  practice  of 
some  form  of  exclusiveness — be  it  of 
persons  or  of  circumstances.  It  is  fre- 
quently observed  among  representa- 
tives of  the  radical  classes  that,  if  ele- 
vated to  official  position,  they  are  forced 
to  hedge  themselves  about  with  the  very 
formalities  and  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  very  privileges  which  they  had  there- 
tofore denounced  as  snobbery. 

Society  resembles  nature  in  being 
genial  only  when  conformed  to ;  toward 
the  misunderstood,  the  suspected,  the 
condemned,  how  little  we  realize  the 
cruelty  of  its  countenance.  By  the  ill 
treatment  or  rough  replies  occasionally 
received  from  those  that  misplace  us, 
are  our  eyes  opened  to  the  general  at- 
titude most  men  encounter — and  many 
merit.  The  captive  looks  out  upon  a 
world  from  which  mere  exclusion  alters 
the  entire  aspect. 

[247] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Participation  in  that  perversion  of 
social  life  miscalled  'society,'  when  not 
due  to  some  defect  of  temperament,  is 
usually  motived  by  selfish  ends.  Friend 
cultivates  friend  for  profit,  and  self- 
seeking  exploits  the  forms  of  hospital- 
ity. All  well-poised  persons  soon  fall 
away  from  such  shams — the  unam- 
bitious and  noble  scorn  them  ab  initio. 
Great  purpose  is  seldom  seen  abroad. 
We  become  scarce  as  we  find  ourselves, 
and  practise  both  a  natural  and  inevi- 
table exclusiveness.  In  every  personal 
environment  there  will  be  found  some 
lack  of  appreciation,  upon  which, 
whether  antagonistic  or  merely  derisory, 
sensitiveness  is  forced  to  turn  its  back. 

To  others  we  are  always  a  matter  of 
far  less  observation  than  we  think,  and 
of  even  less  concern.  Men  are  sepa- 
rated from  us  by  whatever  separates  us 
from  them:  the  bridge  is  down  both 

[248] 


ways.  We  have  the  measure  of  the 
world's  indifference  toward  us  in  our 
indifference  toward  it.  The  ordinary 
contacts  of  mankind  afford  little  op- 
portunity for  mutual  understanding; 
so  few  are  the  occasions  of  even  ex- 
ternal community  that  we  are  reduced 
to  meeting  at  meals.  Most  lives  touch 
like  shipboard  acquaintances  only  at 
their  node  of  transit  and  share  little  of 
their  enlargements  beyond. 

Liberty  of  thought  scatters  the  flock. 
Unanimity  exists  only  in  the  class-room ; 
outside,  every  practical  question  is  a 
matter  of  uncertainty  calling  for  private 
judgment,  and  is  settled  by  every  one 
differently.  Graduation  not  only  con- 
fers the  privilege  of  divergence  but 
thereunto  imposes  the  duty.  After  the 
initial  gregariousness,  companionship  is 
no  longer  to  be  looked  for;  at  best  we 
may  expect  an  occasional  flash  of  ap- 

[249] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

preciation  or  a  tacit  general  sympathy. 
Though  we  traverse  the  same  ocean, 
our  keels  never  furrow  the  same  salt. 
As  the  rough  inexorableness  of  nature 
appears  in  unexpected  places  through 
the  smooth  surface  of  our  serenity,  so 
crude  fact  everywhere  crops  through 
the  ideal.  The  margins  of  moral- 
ity like  those  of  safety  are  narrow: 
society  like  all  terrestrial  existence  is 
never  far  distant  from  catastrophe. 
Mankind  has  not  yet  emerged  from  the 
woods  of  savagery  as  far  as  the  flower 
of  its  cultivation  would  lead  to  infer. 
Upon  the  clearings  of  character  and 
civilization  the  forest  of  primitive  in- 
stinct presses  hard,  and  only  by  per- 
petual weeding  can  we  keep  back  the 
bracken  and  bush  and  sapling  whose 
insidious  inroads  always  presage  a  rec- 
lamation of  the  soil  by  the  wilderness. 

[250] 


SUPREME  PURPOSES 

PRECISION  restricts  growth;  phi- 
losophy cannot  long  remain  true 
unless  it  keeps  open  house  to  facts 
and  is  cordial  to  all  comers.  Too  in- 
sistent an  orderliness  conflicts  with 
the  wider  arrangements  of  existence: 
though  system  helps,  an  exact  adher- 
ence to  it  confines  and  crushes.  Any 
excess  of  carefulness  in  one  direction  is 
bound  to  mean  carelessness  in  another. 
As  memory  is  the  strong  point  of  little 
minds,  so  is  it  the  weak  point  of  great 
minds.  Mere  sentimentality  bars  prog- 
ress; better  to  be  without  feeling  where 
feeling  is  without  avail.  In  every 
occupation  the  hyper-sensitive  are  han- 
dicapped: circumspection  blocks  ac- 

[251] 


complishment,  criticism  clogs  creative- 
ness.  A  peace-at-any-price  policy  in- 
evitably brings  stagnation  and  invites 
eventual  disaster.  Only  robust  senti- 
ment and  blunt  words  meet  the  require- 
ments of  raw  reality.  It  is  impossible 
to  preserve  an  even  surface  of  propriety : 
things  happen  as  they  must,  and  ap- 
pearances have  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves as  best  they  may.  The  large  in- 
choate self  is  the  chaotic  but  creative 
America  of  the  soul.  The  days  when 
cares  less  confined  us  and  wrhen  en- 
thusiasms had  free  hand  were  days 
when  great  ideals  most  actuated  our 
lives :  our  heroic  age  was  our  epic  age. 
All  inward  liberty  subordinates  the 
appearance  of  the  whole  to  the  welfare 
of  the  parts ;  a  complete  product  is  not 
obtained  save  by  the  full  scope  of  its 
factors.  Unless  it  expresses  an  inform- 
ing health,  the  profile  of  society,  like 

[252] 


SUPREME  PURPOSES 

facial  expression  and  bodily  figure,  fails 
of  beauty.  There  is  more  hope  in  the 
anarchy  and  bewilderment  of  individu- 
alism than  in  any  communal  uniformity 
that  checks  personal  development.  Pub- 
lic order  cannot  be  judged  by  its  preva- 
lence but  only  by  the  extent  to  which 
this  exists  without  enforcement.  It  is 
merely  in  formulation  that  laws  are 
legislative — both  in  origin  and  in  sanc- 
tion they  are  social.  An  irregularity 
indicative  of  freedom  is  more  pro- 
foundly beautiful  than  any  symmetry 
produced  by  constraint.  Just  as  men 
prove  individually  more  interesting  than 
collectively  they  would  appear  to  be, 
so  in  contradiction  to  the  outward 
confusion  and  ugliness  of  the  commu- 
nity is  the  culture  of  character  and 
home.  How  scarred  by  its  garden 
walls  seems  the  wooded  hill-side,  how 
broken  its  even  green  by  the  dwellings 

[2531 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  dot  it;  yet  are  these  incident 
to  local  embellishment,  implying  land- 
scape-gardening and  interior  decora- 
tion. 

Progress  leaves  a  ragged  wake  of 
ruin,  and  must  depend  upon  some  red 
cross  of  samaritanism  to  bring  up  the 
rear.  Philanthropies,  ethics,  aesthetics 
are  mere  camp-followers  of  mankind's 
advance  and  are  impotent  to  restrain 
the  race  from  the  rough  route  of  its 
forward  movement.  The  larger  order 
is  not  nice.  Though  refinement  ex- 
ceeds expectation,  brutality  also  as- 
tounds by  its  extent.  Mere  brawn  and 
muscle  are  everywhere  the  bases  of  ex- 
istence, and  every  new  field  of  enter- 
prise increases  the  demand  for  them. 
Upon  the  inventories  of  materialism 
the  priceless  items  are  stated  as  of  no 
value.  We  must  sell  our  hay  unless  we 
can  finance  the  finer  crops  ourselves. 

[254] 


SUPREME  PURPOSES 

Not  yet  is  the  day  when  the  red  war  of 
outward  expansion  may  give  place  to 
the  white  peace  of  inward  develop- 
ment. The  world's  work  is  still  con- 
ducted under  the  lash :  contract  entered 
into  under  the  duress  of  industrialism 
is  but  a  veneer  for  servitude.  From 
'might  makes  right*  to  'majority 
makes  right*  is  not  necessarily  a  great 
step  forward;  truth  still  dwells  with 
the  minority  however  much  political 
optimists  may  blink  the  fact,  and  de- 
mocracy can  never  justify  itself  until  it 
has  given  effect  to  its  fundamental  as- 
sumption of  equal  education,  cultiva- 
tion and  opportunity  for  all. 

Most  evils  go  to  a  tragic  extreme  be- 
fore culmination;  an  incredible  climax 
is  reached.  The  pendulum  of  error 
attains  the  point  of  terror,  the  bad 
wreaks  its  worst  upon  the  best.  Heroic 
truth  has  ever  gone  a  via  crucis;  trag- 

[2551 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

edy  is  epitomized  in  that  surcharged 
trinity  of  words:  They  crucified  Him. 
Nothing  short  of  catastrophe  to  the  per- 
fect suffices  to  rend  the  veil  of  the  ex- 
istent and  rouse  lethargy  from  its  sleep; 
except  through  death  life  cannot  prove 
itself  completely.  Nature  resents  every 
denial  and  inevitably  rises  to  reaffirma- 
tion:  resurrection  is  but  the  natural 
rebound  of  life.  Only  into  the  night 
of  negation  rises  the  soul's  unquench- 
able star. 

Supreme  purposes  always  exact  an 
unreservedness  of  devotion  that  de- 
stroys their  instrumentalities :  not  often 
does  fate  permit  to  the  illustrious  an 
anti-climax.  Fame  is  an  ivy  of  the  ruins. 
Great  deeds  spend  the  doer — we  pluck 
life  only  out  of  the  jaws  of  death. 
There  is  no  undertaking  but  risks 
offence,  failure,  disaster:  with  every 
venture  we  put  our  very  lives  in  jeop- 

[256] 


SUPREME  PURPOSES 

ardy,  for  all  spiritual  wounds  are 
physically  mortal.  A  gradual  sacrifice 
of  health,  patience  under  declining 
strength — herein  is  heroism  no  less 
than  in  facing  any  sudden  fate.  In 
fact  it  is  life  itself  that  kills;  death  is 
the  consummation  of  forces  continu- 
ously in  operation  since  birth,  and  like 
every  due  demolition  is  implicated  in 
construction.  Not  even  from  the  most 
sheltered  lot  or  cautiously  led  existence 
can  the  destructive  agencies  encom- 
passing it  be  excluded.  To  all  organ- 
isms the  end  comes  normally,  not  as  a 
misadventure,  but  as  the  full  bloom  and 
ripened  result  of  instinct  and  natural 
activities.  Recipes  for  longevity  do  not 
lengthen,  but  only  protract:  attempts 
to  guard  and  so  preserve  life  defeat  their 
end,  effecting  pro  tanto  its  immediate 
loss.  Save  by  fatal  acts  we  cannot 
educe  the  full  self;  it  is  when  desperate 

[257] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  we  display  our  parts  and  sound 
the  tone  of  our  whole  sonorousness. 
We  both  die  by  living  and  live  by 
dying — through  its  forfeiture  life  be- 
comes eternal.  At  the  cost  of  bodily 
beauty  we  win  our  laurels,  at  the 
expense  of  youth  achieve  our  fame. 
Green  to  be  sure  is  the  olive  of  victory, 
yet  withered  the  hand  outstretched  to 
take  it. 

Death  is  the  final  renunciation  that 
all  men  are  called  upon  to  make  in  the 
cause  of  progress;  yet  by  old  age  this 
is  rendered  not  only  unregretful  but 
grateful.  More  than  so  far  is  it  per- 
mitted no  man  to  follow  the  advance; 
upon  some  Joshua  of  a  fresher  genera- 
tion does  it  always  devolve  to  go  forward 
with  the  standards  of  achievement  and 
enter  the  promised  land  of  fulfilment. 
As  fleshly  decline  buys  spiritual  ad- 
vancement, so  by  virtue  of  our  indi- 

[258] 


SUPREME  PURPOSES 

vidual  abdication  the  race  reigns.  The 
demise  of  the  body  is,  like  fragrance, 
the  generosity  of  substance  and  the 
very  swan-song  of  fruition. 


[*59] 


THE  MASK  OF  CIRCUMSTANCE 

HEROISM  is  a  ship  that  looks  so 
romantic  at  sea,  so  dingy  at  the 
dock.  There  is  no  delight  or 
disaster  that  does  not  soon  drop  into 
the  jog-trot  of  days:  our  precious  ex- 
periences that  once  meant  so  much 
to  us,  merge  finally  in  mere  general 
credits  on  account.  The  startling  finds 
no  niche  in  the  quiet  hall  of  fame,  and 
discoveries  that  at  first  astounded  the 
world  are  simply  filed  away  in  the  or- 
derly desk  of  truth.  Squalid  common- 
place squats  even  upon  Mediterranean 
shores  and  amid  Arcadian  scenes :  from 
the  universal  vulgarity  of  the  mid-day 
dinner  there  is  no  escape.  The  im- 
portunacy  of  circumstance  is  all-preva- 

[2601 


THE  MASK  OF  CIRCUMSTANCE 

lent ;  storm  or  shine  the  incessant  craft 
of  daily  duty  put  to  sea. 

It  is  the  blindness  of  experience  that 
makes  it  so  hard  to  bear;  yet  this  is 
the  very  essence  of  its  discipline.  The 
moment  could  not  be  heroic  if  it  were 
consciously  so.  Life  is  a  purse  that  re- 
quires us,  in  getting  at  any  one  com- 
partment, to  close  all  others :  to  see  the 
larger  significance  of  anything  that  oc- 
cupies us  is  difficult.  Rarely  does  the 
modern  voyage  of  existence  afford  an 
uninterrupted  sight  of  the  sea,  or  even 
of  the  decks:  it  is  only  in  young  com- 
munities that  the  total  view  yet  survives 
to  the  individual.  The  tendency  of 
labour  is  to  withdraw  us  from  the  open 
air  of  events  and  to  impose  restraint 
and  coercion.  Destiny  prepares  itself 
in  the  pale  secrecy  of  earth  and  brain. 

All  things,  when  action  approaches, 
seem  to  diminish  in  importance  and  in- 
[261] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

crease  in  difficulty.  Incidents  that  in 
fact  give  life  a  new  start,  appear  at  the 
time  only  to  retard  it;  those  that  in 
fact  give  it  a  newer  and  firmer  founda- 
tion, only  to  subvert  it.  Few  are  the 
peaks  in  life  that  catch  the  sun  of  dis- 
tinction. Even  epoch-making  events 
are  wont  to  wear  the  momentary  guise 
of  diversions  from  the  main  issue.  Un- 
profitableness is  never  so  self-apparent 
as  when  it  begins  to  turn  itself  to  profit, 
nor  laziness  so  glaring  as  when  it  first 
throws  off  its  lethargy.  Unless  there  is 
progress,  the  delay  is  not  galling:  to 
the  callous  the  world  wags  along  very 
well.  So  exalted  must  be  our  standards 
in  order  to  accomplish  anything  pre- 
eminent that  perseverance  can  scarcely 
cope  with  discouragement.  The  mod- 
esty of  most  creative  workers  is  due  to 
their  contact  with  the  immensity  still 
remaining  undone.  Every  large  soul 

[262] 


THE  MASK  OF  CIRCUMSTANCE 

brings  its  littleness  to  the  bar  of  its 
breadth — and  lives  humbly. 

Our  proven  powers  are  a  gross  un- 
derestimate of  our  possibilities;  only 
by  believing  ourselves  to  be  what  we 
are  not,  can  we  ever  become  what  we 
are.  To  be  matter-of-fact  as  to  our 
capacity  is  death.  It  takes  art  to  tell 
us  our  extent:  music  surprises  us  at 
our  infinity.  Careers  are  limited  only 
as  they  accept  bounds.  One  cannot 
feel  magnified  by  any  reputation  if  it 
is  deserved,  for  he  is  more  than  any 
mere  evidence  of  himself;  pride  is  by 
its  very  nature  a  sign  of  over-valuation. 
Only  men  without  courage  parade  it: 
braggarts  think  themselves  valiant  even 
when  their  opponent  yields.  A  noble 
discontent  registers  the  struggling  soul 
and  even  impatience  shows  us  to  be 
far-bound.  Life  is  expectant  tasting. 
We  rate  self  by  what  we  exact  of  it: 

[263] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

genius  divides  with  no  lesser  claim. 
The  heart's  divinity  always  suffers 
spiritual  homesickness. 

All  meanings  grow  abashed  and  self- 
effacing  in  our  presence.  The  living 
moment  has  no  colour  of  its  own,  but, 
chameleon-like,  takes  that  of  some  fut- 
ure to  which  it  looks  forward  or  of 
some  past  to  which  it  looks  back. 
There  seems  offered  us  only  the  unrest 
of  transition  to  a  better  that  is  not  yet 
or  the  peacefulness  of  a  good  that  is 
no  more — anticipatory  youth  or  remi- 
niscent age,  constructive  Americas  or 
finished  Europes. 

How  prone  is  discouragement  to  for- 
get that  all  former  achievement  was 
equally  beset  with  difficulty  and  doubt : 
the  path  of  glory  is  ever  a  miry  road 
to  him  that  travels  it.  Golgothas  of 
triumph  become  sanctified  by  venera- 
tion and  their  grim  lesson  is  lost;  the 

[264] 


THE  MASK  OF  CIRCUMSTANCE 

sacredness  of  the  cross  has  supplanted 
its  profanation.  What  to  the  comba- 
tants was  the  field  of  victory  but  a 
dark,  slippery  place  of  struggle  ?  There 
is  but  one  battle-ground — the  here  and 
the  now. 

Unlike  the  optical,  spiritual  perspec- 
tive enlarges:  the  past  is  a  dais.  Im- 
agination mounts  the  great  figures  of 
history  on  horseback  and  invests  them 
with  deification:  we  are  all  Aztecs,  to 
whom  the  cavalry  of  events  seems  like 
a  gallop  of  the  gods.  Beneath  every 
halo,  however,  or  grand  pose  or  golden 
sky  lived  in  truth  a  simple  humanity, 
concerned  chiefly  with  every-day  inter- 
ests: the  ruins  we  sentimentalize  were 
often  the  seat  of  flagrant  living.  From 
no  romantic  age,  place  or  occasion  was 
the  wet-blanket  of  reality  absent.  The 
day  always  thinks  itself  degenerate — 
no  longer  do  the  ancient  towers  of 

[265] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

time  vibrate  to  thrilling  hours  but  to  a 
mere  monotony  of  existence.  Yet  the 
unnoted  victories  of  civilization  are  be- 
ing won  the  while.  Deaf  must  be  the 
ear  that  cannot  through  the  clatter  of 
circumstance  hear  the  steady  onmarch 
of  humanity,  shaking  the  very  earth. 

Unless  we  live  with  insight,  we  shall 
not  look  back  without  regret.  Men 
hasten  through  the  days  in  search  of 
what  the  days  themselves  contain :  they 
press  on  to  the  destination  only  to  find 
on  reaching  it  that  what  they  came  for 
was  passed  on  the  way.  The  ends  of 
life  are  not  at  the  end.  The  safe  moor- 
ing from  which  we  confidently  cast  off 
— how  eagerly  we  strive  to  regain  it ;  to 
the  dear  harbour  from  which  we  impa- 
tiently put  forth,  how  keen  though  vain 
our  wish  to  return !  All  day  long  we  pur- 
sue our  toil  neglectful  of  the  sun,  yet 
once  set,  every  eye  turns  with  regretful 

[2661 


THE  MASK  OF  CIRCUMSTANCE 

gaze  toward  the  untenanted  west :  youth 
is  so  fair — only  afterward. 

It  behooves  us  to  step  softly  and 
tread  gently,  for  who  knows  upon  what 
memory  we  may  not  even  now  be  set- 
ting foot?  Our  o'ershadowing  pres- 
ence beclouds  our  path.  To  itself  con- 
sciousness seems  merely  to  be  taking 
notes  for  further  elaboration ;  life  moves 
under  a  constant  illusion  of  later  re- 
vision and  review.  Everywhere  one 
observes  preparations  for  a  holiday 
that  is  never  held.  Men  look  forward 
to  some  great  day  of  fulfilment,  and 
only  little  by  little  does  it  dawn  upon 
them  that  the  day  is  already  at  hand. 
The  fleeting  proves  to  be  the  perma- 
nent. 


[267] 


BABEL 

THE  congestion  of  life  loads  atten- 
tion with  more  experiences  than 
it  can  liquidate  into  joy:  happi- 
ness is  forced  into  bankruptcy  by  a 
run  on  its  perfectly  solvent  capacity. 
The  expansion  of  our  soul  and  the  safe 
credit  of  our  fancy  collapse  under  the 
importunate  demands  of  phenomena. 
Let  us  conduct  no  larger  a  business 
with  existence  than  the  capital  of  en- 
joyment warrants,  opening  our  doors 
to  no  more  than  we  can  accommodate. 
When  apperceptions  exceed  suscepti- 
bility, they  impose  impossibilities  upon 
it:  what  we  have  no  room  for  we  can- 
not take  in.  The  dishes  are  removed 
while  we  are  still  eating  and  ever  fresh 

[268] 


BABEL 

ones  placed  before  us.  In  the  midst 
of  our  superabundant  blessings  we 
taste  none  of  them. 

Modern  existence  is  a  very  car-win- 
dow of  impression  and  fatigue.  The 
soul  is  crazed  by  the  assaults  of  the 
city :  attention  lives  on  the  rack.  Mul- 
tiplication of  potentialities  has  so  mul- 
tiplied dangers  that  life  is  largely  en- 
grossed in  safely  crossing  its  tracks. 
The  very  demands  that  raise  the  phys- 
ical requirements  of  the  race  reduce 
its  physique:  only  the  huge  business 
of  the  day  can  stagger  under  its  cost. 
There  is  no  way  for  civilization  to  es- 
cape from  the  burden  of  its  budget 
save  by  a  general  disarmament  of  its 
material  requirements :  did  we  care  only 
for  the  important,  the  greater  part  of 
the  world's  work  would  be  unneces- 
sary. Most  lives  are  mortgaged  to 
mere  existence,  leaving  but  a  small 

[269] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

equity  of  enjoyment.  The  juggernaut 
of  commercialism  crushes  men  by  way 
of  broadening  them,  and  irons  them 
flat  by  way  of  smoothing  the  path  of 
mankind. 

Superfluity  fills  the  world ;  experience 
is  chock-a-block  and  asks  only  for  re- 
lief. The  soul  is  buried  beneath  the 
drift  of  circumstance  and  struggles 
like  an  entombed  miner  for  extrication. 
We  long  since  gathered  more  data 
than  we  can  ever  avail  ourselves  of. 
The  new  is  unnecessary:  everything 
resembles  what  we  know  already  and 
leads  to  no  further  conclusion.  Num- 
ber does  not  change  the  issue  raised  by 
instance,  but  simply  confuses  its  state- 
ment: the  salient  fact  is  smothered  in 
its  incidentals.  Upon  us  seeking  the 
all-round  view,  men  impose  their  angle 
of  partial  vision — to  our  general  remark 
they  answer  specifically.  So  enveloped 

[270] 


BABEL 

in  the  flummeries  of  worldly  honour  are 
ability  and  character  that  it  is  difficult 
any  longer  to  detect  the  real  thing  for 
which  they  stand.  All  that  is  not  con- 
ducive is  seductive:  the  danger  of  ac- 
cessories is  that  they  generally  distract 
and  often  desecrate.  More  than  enough 
for  the  purpose  is  too  much  for  it :  pos- 
session beyond  need  is  a  burden. 

Upon  experience  enjoyment  imposes 
a  natural  limit:  why  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  our  capacity  to  appre- 
ciate it  ?  It  is  still  necessary  to  '  count 
our  mercies'  would  we  perceive  them; 
let  us  constantly  be  telling  the  beads 
of  our  pleasure.  Just  as  one  enjoys 
nothing  when  seeing  everything,  so 
when  seeing  nothing  he  enjoys  every- 
thing; in  default  of  other  interest  even 
the  monotonous  wall-paper  of  existence 
interests  us.  Things  do  not  lose  their 
force  or  effect  from  their  prevalence  but 
[271] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 
from  our  insensibility.  Over-experience 
affords  no  experience  whatsoever,  for 
values  vanish;  only  under  restriction 
can  anything  register  its  importance. 
How  often  where  we  had  awaited  from 
friends  eager  expectancy,  have  we  not 
found  our  advent  to  be  only  an  added 
complication  in  their  already  over- 
crowded lives.  The  soul  is  stricken 
with  reception  beyond  perception.  We 
are  wholly  unable  to  live  up  to  the  ac- 
cumulations of  experience  already  ours, 
yet  keep  constantly  amassing  a  larger 
fortune  of  them:  a  glutted  attention 
is  testified  to  on  all  sides  by  worry, 
sleeplessness  and  every  other  form  of 
mental  break-down.  The  survivors 
of  our  fathers'  quieter  age  show  minds 
less  wracked,  hearts  less  wrung;  life 
to-day  like  its  locomotion  is  so  rapid 
that  every  stop  is  sudden  and  jarring. 
It  is  permissible  that  energy  should  be 

[272] 


BABEL 

a  matter  of  more  or  less,  but  never  of 
some  or  none.  When  the  day's  work 
brings,  instead  of  mere  fatigue,  pros- 
tration, it  exceeds  the  day's  strength 
and  docks  the  future.  Labour  and  re- 
cess, morning  and  evening,  ought  not 
to  vary  except  in  relative  degrees  of 
freshness.  To  overlive  is  but  an  in- 
sidious overfeeding:  it  is  as  incumbent 
upon  us  to  impose  abstemiousness  upon 
the  mind  as  upon  the  body,  and  to 
guard  it  against  excess.  A  bare  suffi- 
ciency is  the  largest  capaciousness; 
what  does  not  nourish  is  actually  in- 
jurious. The  intestinal  mind  feeds  well 
but  the  glutton  senses  starve.  Let  us 
take  the  timely  warning  of  laziness, 
uttering  as  it  does  satiety's  protest 
against  surfeit  and  proclaiming  that 
we  would  be  left  alone :  heard  is  it  not 
by  the  empty-minded  but  by  the  full — 
heeded  is  it  not  by  the  idle  but  by  the 

[278] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

wise.     Well-watered  subsoils  need  little 
surface  irrigation  of  novelty. 

We  lose  our  way  amid  the  city-streets 
of  mere  happenings.  The  stream  of 
the  mind  flows  through  the  sands  of 
multiplicity  and  has  difficulty  in  keep- 
ing continuity.  Only  strength  can 
grasp  totals;  feebleness  gets  absorbed 
in  the  items.  We  relish  the  complex 
when  we  are  keen  enough  to  rid  it  of 
its  complexity;  but  fatigue  because  it 
is  weary,  dullness  because  it  is  blunt* 
craves  the  obvious.  In  the  maze  of 
reduplication,  perception  is  perplexed; 
without  the  aid  of  abstract  concepts 
we  should  be  unable  to  arrive  at  any 
singleness  of  idea.  Open  eyes  are 
empty;  surface-finds  usually  prove 
valueless.  The  buzzing  fly  of  phe- 
nomena diverts  the  attention  of  most 
men;  but  in  the  capacity  to  bring 
the  scattered  parts  of  experience  to- 

[274] 


BABEL 

gether  and  weld  them  into  unity,  lie 
both  genius  and  character.  Propor- 
tion is  the  very  structure  of  perfection, 
and  a  sense  of  it  can  alone  make  a  com- 
prehensive mind.  The  power  to  sum- 
marize is  the  power  to  make  ours:  we 
must  keep  everything  down  to  its  per- 
tinence. Though  attention  is  exposed 
to  every  barbarian  trifle,  there  needs 
but  a  small  guard  of  concentration  to 
hold  its  citadel.  The  trained  eye  takes 
in  at  a  glance :  omission  proves  the  ex- 
pert, and  brevity,  wisdom.  To  come 
at  the  truth,  facts  must  be  abandoned; 
we  cannot  stick  to  the  letter  of  expe- 
rience. Whitman  was  no  more  an  ar- 
tist than  an  inventory  is  literature. 
Behind  the  minutiae  of  manifestation 
lies  the  meaning:  idealism  excepts  to 
realism  and  appeals  to  reality. 

The  sea  of  event  fumes  at  its  edge, 
however    still    its    expanse    may    lie. 

[275] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

Pomp  and  parade  attend  petty  func- 
tions more  often  than  notable  transac- 
tions. Though  the  world  is  imposing  in 
circumstance  it  is  usually  trivial  in  aim : 
its  great  outward  occasions  are  but 
trifling  occurrences.  The  elaboration 
and  detail  of  even  commonplace  ideas 
make  them  so  superficially  dazzling 
as  to  hide  their  miserable  shallowness. 
Life  suffers  from  over-activity  rather 
than  from  inertia;  there  is  a  greater 
disposition  to  do  the  wrong  thing  than 
to  do  nothing.  Restiveness  is  a  steed 
that  starts  before  thought  is  fairly  in 
the  saddle;  the  energetic  prefer  a  cer- 
tainty though  false  to  the  uncertainty 
of  truth.  We  usually  impute  to.  men 
better  motives  for  their  acts  than  for 
their  inaction;  the  reverse,  however, 
would  more  often  conform  to  fact.  It 
is  a  fortunate  provision  of  nature  that 
visits  excess  with  weariness  and  damp- 

[276] 


BABEL 

ens  incompetency  with  indolence,  there- 
by rendering  them  harmless.  The  do- 
ings of  the  day  are  for  the  most  part 
the  mere  workings  of  the  yeast;  and 
their  record  is  of  no  importance  except 
as  testifying  to  the  ferment.  Generally 
speaking,  bodily  activity  is  in  inverse 
ratio  to  mental :  the  little-minded  must 
always  be  about  something,  but  the 
large  outlook  is  still.  Only  leisure  is 
formative;  the  flood-gates  of  thought 
do  not  open  till  quiet  comes.  Those 
moments  that  suddenly  crystallize  into 
clearness  overtake  none  but  the  quies- 
cent. 

Let  us  cease  to  be  busy  that  we  may 
at  last  get  to  work.  The  activities  that 
are  filled  with  the  exhilaration  of  ac- 
complishment do  not  often  accomplish 
much:  the  unrest  of  most  lives  is  but 
the  pendulum-swing  of  one  or  another 
excess  of  motion.  Work  is  seldom 

[277] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

according  to  its  seeming;  and  labour  is 
its  least  laborious  form.  To  be  hu- 
man is  the  busiest  of  all  occupations. 
The  average  man  regards  definite  trans- 
actions dealing  with  the  material  means 
of  subsistence  as  a  far  more  serious  af- 
fair than  undefined  employment  hav- 
ing to  do  with  the  processes  and  beau- 
ties of  life  itself  (the  very  dogs  are  sus- 
picious of  a  loiterer);  yet  how  much 
more  transcending  in  consequence,  more 
strenuous  in  accomplishment  is  the  lat- 
ter. Even  when  we  merely  look  on  and 
contemplate,  we  fulfil  a  necessary  func- 
tion and  one  that  is  in  many  cases  more 
important  than  participation  itself.  To 
dream  is  to  keep  the  sweetest  tryst  and 
to  be  faithful  to  a  foreordained  rendez- 
vous; it  puts  the  motion  of  privilege 
and  comes  at  once  to  the  real  business 
of  life.  External  variety,  such  as  change 
of  scene,  excitement  and  the  like,  are 

[278] 


BABEL 

often  injurious  because  enabling  one 
without  ennui  to  remain  spiritually  the 
same ;  whereas  circumstantial  sameness 
forces  one  in  very  self-refreshment  to 
change  within.  It  will  always  be  found 
that  travellers  do  not  enlarge  inwardly 
as  much  as  the  sedentary  expand  by 
study. 

Reality  overpowers  the  imagination 
with  particulars  and  stifles  it  with  local 
colour ;  the  picture  is  obliterated  by  the 
crowd  of  impressions.  From  a  first 
glance  we  get  but  a  general  idea,  and 
at  the  second,  notice  mere  details ;  only 
then  is  it  that  we  observe  the  parts  as 
a  whole,  as  well  as  the  whole  in  its 
parts.  The  day  fills  itself  with  its  in- 
evitable inflow,  and  vision  is  quickly 
submerged;  all  life  looks  jaded  upon 
its  thronged  thoroughfare.  From  the 
melee  of  circumstance  creative  genius 
has  ever  had  to  go  forth:  contempla- 

[279] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

tion  is  a  cat  that  roams  when  all  the 
senses  are  asleep.  As  the  food  that 
strengthens  also  dulls,  so  is  it  difficult 
to  obtain  the  material  for  art  without  at 
the  same  time  forfeiting  the  conditions 
of  its  artistic  treatment.  Yet  conversely 
the  very  occasions  that  thus  preclude 
expression  also  prompt  it ;  inspiration  is 
not  as  infrequent  as  the  opportunity  to 
take  advantage  of  it.  By  fleeing  prosaic 
circumstances  we  are  likely  to  forego 
poetic  suggestion.  Time  always  seems 
to  be  either  too  full  or  too  empty  for  ut- 
terance. Silence  has  but  the  negative 
virtue  of  exclusion,  and  mere  isolation 
is  self -filled;  as  the  city  can  only  inti- 
mate, so  the  country  can  only  elaborate. 
The  one  point  of  vantage  is  wrhere  quiet 
comes  closest  to  the  thick  of  life.  The 
world  does  not  pass  us  in  review  unless 
we  pass  it  in  review ;  creative  seclusion 
is  but  a  step  removed  from  the  street. 

[  280  ] 


BABEL 

Only  in  the  metropolitan  proportions 
of  life  are  the  petty  and  the  personal 
suppressed :  it  is  by  keeping  time  empty 
but  interest  filled,  by  having  the  world 
accessible  to  us  but  ourselves  not  to  it, 
that  we  obtain  the  true  mixture  of  liv- 
ing. The  drama  of  event  is  best  seen 
from  the  background,  for  the  audience 
itself  is  part  of  the  spectacle.  To  know 
rather  than  to  be  known  is  happiness— 
albeit  men  ever  seek  to  be  known 
rather  than  knowing.  Let  us  rejoice  at 
the  customary  retirement  of  our  lot, 
seeing  that  all  commanding  locations 
are  exposed  to  the  winds. 

Life  is  complication,  art  simplifi- 
cation. Except  we  disentangle  exist- 
ence we  cannot  see  its  drift  or  restore 
its  gusto.  Only  analysis  discovers 
what  is  amiss:-  totality  can  never 
tell.  In  the  potpourri  of  experience 
the  individual  flavour  of  its  ingre- 

[281] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

dients  is  lost:  taste  is  blinded  by  a 
blend;  by  resolving  into  its  parts,  how- 
ever, we  obtain  an  explanation.  Sin- 
gleness is  the  bold  pencil  that  with  a 
mere  stroke  conveys  its  meaning;  but 
complexity  blurs  the  effect  with  intri- 
cate detail.  What  one  misses  in  the 
bulk,  he  finds  in  the  specimen,  where 
it  is  easier  to  get  at;  the  thought  must 
indeed  be  small  that  cannot  expand 
its  notes.  Not  only  are  the  lessons  of 
experience  as  well  learned  from  little 
things  as  from  large,  but  better,  be- 
cause they  are  more  often  repeated, 
and  more  impressively,  because  not 
derived  from  the  exceptional.  Unless 
we  husk  ideas  of  their  surplusage,  we 
cannot  partake  of  them:  hence  the 
clarification  incidental  to  dealing  writh 
matters  at  a  distance,  whereby  separa- 
tion eliminates  the  environment  that 
obscures.  Whatever  we  make  trans- 

[282] 


BABEL 

parent  to  truth  is  transfigured.  Things 
in  their  purity  are  a  pleasure — it  is 
only  the  needless  adjuncts  that  annoy. 
Whenever  essentials  act  upon  sensi- 
tiveness, the  effect  is  beauty,  the  prod- 
uct poetry;  sweeter  is  the  silence  of  the 
mind's  own  musing  than  all  the  sym- 
phony of  instrumentation.  The  ter- 
race of  spirituality  keeps  the  highway 
of  offence  out  of  sight:  every  real 
home  is  a  refuge  from  the  inessential. 
Dignity  of  character  is  like  unto  a 
darkened  house  whose  cool  and  quiet 
seclusion  comes  of  windows  shuttered 
against  the  outside  glare  and  noise. 

All  self-limitation  is  selective;  the 
body-guard  of  life  is  picked  from  the 
flower  of  its  troops.  When  we  take 
little  luggage  we  have  only  what  we 
want.  The  past  packs  its  wisdom  in 
proverbs — full-weighted,  fit  for  travel. 
Abbreviation  is  expressive,  and  conden- 

[283] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

sation  gains  in  weight:  to  cut  thought 
is  to  get  the  sparkle  of  its  diamond. 
How  precious  is  time  when  short:  days 
when  numbered  begin  to  be  well  spent. 
All  summaries  clarify — farewells  review 
life  and  attempt  reparation;  danger 
raises  the  quality  of  conduct. 

Through  the  fine  mesh  of  memory, 
experience  is  strained  of  its  coarseness 
and  so  made  easier  of  assimilation. 
From  the  past  we  learn  the  lessons  of 
the  present;  the  enjoyment  of  most 
incidents  is  in  retrospect.  The  far-off 
fog  is  the  sun-lit  cloud:  the  dead 
belie  their  meanness.  It  is  chiefly  the 
nobleness  of  former  times  that  sur- 
vives to  shame  these:  history  preserves 
its  prowess  as  if  for  example.  Among 
the  remoter  phases  of  existence  where 
garish  actuality  cannot  so  easily  dispel 
it,  sentiment  takes  refuge — all  old 
days  are  the  good  old  days.  Lost 

[284] 


BABEL 

causes  are  hot-beds  of  romance;  the 
.fate  of  the  fallen  prince  has  ever  been 
espoused  by  the  chivalric.  In  long 
stalactites  of  beauty  time  reflects  its 
illumined  shores. 

Incontrovertible  testimony  to  our 
character  is  borne  by  the  harvest  of 
our  retentiveness ;  for  its  seed  is  atten- 
tion. How  tell-tale  are  the  topics  we 
broach,  the  impressions  we  describe, 
the  incidents  we  relate.  Where  recol- 
lection rings  hollow,  perception  ran 
shallow.  There  is  in  the  soul  a  re- 
moteness that  is  not  distance,  a  gulf 
that  no  backward  glance  can  bridge. 
All  that  sensibility  let  slip  is  retrospec- 
tively lost;  but  all  that  it  seized  is  an  in- 
separable possession.  With  what  treas- 
ures were  not  the  galleries  of  the  mind 
filled,  had  its  acquisitions  always  been 
of  the  best. 

Memory  is  the  one  pressed   flower 

[2851 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  never  fades.  The  past  is  not  only 
telescopically  near,  but  microscopically 
enlarged;  by  middle  age  its  accumu- 
lations encroach  upon  any  fresh  ac- 
cretion of  experience.  On  the  surface 
of  the  mind's  mirror,  the  moment  is  a 
mere  mist;  one  would  get  little  nour- 
ishment from  the  event  without  the  cud 
of  recollection.  We  work  up  the  can- 
vas of  presence  in  the  studio  of  absence. 
No  packet  of  other  days  is  opened  but 
some  still-living  thought  falls  out.  With 
what  vivid  recall  speak  the  jottings  of 
our  note-book — theirs  is  a  conjury  of 
revival  little  suspected  by  the  random 
item:  life  leaps  out  to  us  once  more 
from  the  captor  page.  In  the  amber  of 
thought  the  fly  of  circumstance  lies 
embalmed.  Every  reminder  restores 
an  extinct  world;  the  geologic  rock  of 
recollection  retains  an  ineffaceable  rec- 
ord of  the  past.  We  cannot  take  out 

[286] 


BABEL 

a  pin  without  unpinning  all  attendant 
circumstances:  every  extant  structure 
contains  in  its  corner-stone  the  con- 
temporaneousness of  its  foundation. 
Even  in  abstract  contemplation,  bits  of 
environment  will  be  found  embedded. 
There  is  no  repetition  but  opens  the 
sluices  of  time:  the  recurrent  act  or 
circumstance  is  a  pedestal  of  enduring 
memory.  To  be  associated  with  every- 
day details  of  existence  is  to  be  ensured 
against  oblivion;  hence  the  intimate 
character  of  love's  gifts. 

Things  appear  ever  less  real  the 
more  we  realize  them:  after  our  first 
acquaintance  with  it,  the  world  never 
seems  actual.  Under  a  wider  touch  we 
grow  less  sensitive,  and  become  apa- 
thetic toward  an  over-extended  contact. 
Though  expansion  adds  interests,  it 
takes  away  interest  in  them.  Likewise 
it  is  only  first  experiences  that  rack — all 

[287] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

repetitions  are  the  later  children  of 
easier  birth;  beyond  every  pass  of 
endeavour  lies  an  effortless  descent. 
Early  conditions  are  the  sole  credible 
ones:  all  men  are  dazed  by  this  thing 
that  age  does  to  them :  we  instinctively 
think  of  ourselves  as  more  essentially 
what  we  were  than  what  we  are.  The 
reminiscences  that  cleave  time  and  lay 
bare  the  by-gone  seem  not  only  to  re- 
vert but  to  reveal.  Childhood's  por- 
traits remain  to  us  ever  the  truest. 
Those  that  knew  us  in  infancy  or 
obscurity  never  realize  though  they 
concede  our  fame;  the  former  self  is 
always  stored  up  against  its  every 
later  change.  In  memory  most  amend- 
ments are  lost — the  original  motion  re- 
mains; by  a  lapse  of  thought  we  often 
carry  out  a  first  intention,  utterly  for- 
getting some  reconsideration  and  al- 
teration of  it.  Few  are  the  impres- 

f288l 


BABEL 

sions  of  after  years  that  accompany 
us  far,  whereas  those  of  youth  are 
ineradicable. 

Day  by  day  the  coasts  of  retrospect 
recede  further,  yet  come  but  the  more 
conspicuously  into  sight:  experience 
piles  ever  layer  upon  layer,  yet  the 
earlier  become  only  the  more  accessible. 
We  are  as  dancers  that  through  every 
change  in  the  music  hold  to  the  same 
step,  never  ceasing  to  expect  a  recur- 
rence of  the  original  rhythm.  So  con- 
tinuously potent  are  first  influences 
that  it  is  not  hyperbole  but  simple  fact 
that  mothers  control  the  destiny  of 
mankind.  Forces  of  which  it  is  no 
longer  conscious  ceaselessly  mould  the 
soul.  Character  is  a  seaworthiness 
whose  lines  are  laid  down  upon  the 
ways  of  childhood. 


[289] 


FAR  HORIZONS 

ONLY  the  unuttered  thoughts 
retain  their  full  expansiveness ; 
expression  belittles.  The  best 
qualified  are  always  the  most  chary 
of  positive  statement.  Though  words 
clothe,  they  also  cloak;  to  make  defi- 
nite both  limits  meaning  and,  by  raising 
points  of  disputation,  detracts  from  it. 
All  literalism  silences  the  overtones  of 
the  idea;  our  glimpses  are  more  ex- 
tensive than  our  sight.  Rarely  do  the 
accurate  arrive  at  great  truths.  The 
minutiae  of  knowledge  war  against  its 
width ;  minds  stuffed  with  facts  are  not 
nourished  by  them. 

Wonder  is  the  language  where  words 
fail.    Thought  pierces  but  the  surface 

[290] 


FAR  HORIZONS 

strata  of  truth,  and  the  plummet  of  phi- 
losophy goes  little  deeper.  If  we  reached 
the  ultimate  reason  we  could  not  state 
it;  the  first  cause  is  necessarily  inex- 
pressible. Men  can  still  be  garrulous 
over  piecemeal  beauty — its  effulgence, 
however,  says  the  final  word  and  leaves 
them  speechless.  Perfection  rests  its 
case.  The  doubtful  is  argumentative, 
but  talk  drops  into  silence  when  truth 
arrives. 

The  mind  feels  richer  if  it  does 
not  compute  its  wealth:  sensitiveness 
shrinks  from  exposure  and  deep  senti- 
ment balks  at  any  exhibition  of  itself. 
More  impressive  is  a  single  large  unit 
than  any  number  of  smaller  units  that 
equal  it.  The  year  is  longer  than  its 
total  of  days.  Contrary  to  expectation, 
sums  stated  in  francs  seem  smaller 
than  their  equivalent  in  pounds.  It  is 
not  the  quick  tick  of  the  second  hand 

[291] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

that  makes  us  realize  the  flight  of 
time,  but  rather  the  slow  passage  of 
the  hours. 

Context  limits:  an  isolated  statement 
contains  all  it  will  hold,  but  a  con- 
nected one  expands  only  as  far  as  its 
neighbours  will  let  it.  Into  silence  we 
may  read  anything  we  wish.  Latent 
disapproval,  because  of  its  lack  of  speci- 
fication, is  felt  distributively ;  protests 
are  most  effective  when  unspoken. 
Every  definite  occupation  deprives  us 
of  the  privilege  of  changing  our  funda- 
mental convictions.  We  can  no  longer 
run  with  the  hare  of  individuality  when 
we  hunt  with  the  hounds  of  convention. 
Even  superficial  indicia  of  social  or  pro- 
fessional position — such  as  attire,  hous- 
ing, place  of  business,  repute — tend  to 
colour  our  conduct  with  their  implied 
standards  and  to  confine  our  thought 
within  the  limits  they  set.  Likewise  we 

[292] 


FAR  HORIZONS 

become  prisoners  to  our  words  when 
once  we  have  committed  our  ideas  to 
them,  and  no  longer  retain  the  creative 
power  that  can  correct  them ;  the  formu- 
lation of  our  mere  tentativeness  assumes 
an  unintended  finality.  All  media  and 
forms  of  expression  are  hindrances,  and 
we  can  only  reduce  their  harmfulness 
by  choosing  the  freest;  the  real  tech- 
nique is  not  to  be  acquired  by  the  tech- 
nical but  only  by  such  as  are  surcharged 
with  the  spirit  that  through  it  seeks 
outlet. 

All  flux  of  form  stimulates  the  imag- 
ination because,  like  chaos,  full  of  in- 
finite possibility.  There  are  no  sails 
upon  the  sea  equal  to  the  clouds,  no 
stream  as  beautiful  as  that  of  flowing 
time.  Only  when  the  eye  is  vague  does 
the  retina  of  the  mind  picture  sharp; 
we  intensify  impressions  by  closing  the 
eyes.  Yearning  proves  deficient  in 

[293] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

specification  and  receives  its  solace 
from  other  sources  than  it  had  expect- 
ed: the  perfection  which  youth  hoped 
to  find,  converts  itself  into  an  ideal  to 
be  dreamed  of,  a  heaven  to  be  looked 
forward  to.  The  transcription  of  any 
one  scene  or  experience  can  never  be  a 
legitimate  field  for  art,  whose  concep- 
tions are  necessarily  composite,  sup- 
plying the  deficiency  of  each  life  by 
rounding  out  living.  Each  one's  idea 
of  heaven  is  the  supplement  of  his 
unrealized  earth. 

Whatever  baffles,  incites  us:  we  de- 
mand entrance  wherever  we  are  de- 
barred. Credulity  is  the  sole  remain- 
ing sea  of  mystery.  The  curtained 
contains  the  impossible,  and  secrecy 
confirms  any  theory  that  will  account 
for  it.  Heights  covered  by  clouds  are 
surely  snow-capped ;  just  over  the  edge 
of  every  hope  lies  Elysia.  We  were  as 

[294] 


FAR  HORIZONS 

credulous  as  the  ancients  under  their 
provocation ;  sensationalism  is  the 
modern  form  of  superstition.  In  the 
absence  of  certitude  the  fury  of  the 
unbridled  imagination  breaks  forth :  yet 
a  drop  of  cooling  definiteness  allays  the 
fever  at  once.  How  quickly  the  actual 
facts  of  the  matter  restore  life  to  the 
norm. 

Interest  in  the  day  lasts  only  until  its 
possibilities  fade — its  freshness  passes 
only  with  ours:  now  screams  the  noon 
and  puts  the  morn  to  flight.  Unless 
our  words  suggest  the  unsaid,  they  say 
nothing:  things  that  thrill  can  only  be 
implied.  The  hearer  adds  the  idea 
that  terrifies  or  delights;  his  the  world 
of  meaning  he  attributes  to  the  word 
that  awakened  it.  Woman  does  not 
share  the  dream,  nor  man  the  ideal, 
of  which  each  is  to  the  other  the  em- 
bodiment; the  peculiar  graciousness 

[295] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

ascribed  to  the  beloved  is  the  chrism 
of  the  lover.  Romance  is  its  own  en- 
vironment. All  hills  and  horizons  are 
haunted,  and  every  bay  is  the  refuge  of 
buccaneers. 

We  do  not  realize  how  much  of  the 
world  is  self-made,  nor,  until  we  sub- 
side, perceive  the  oft-times  tawdriness 
of  the  tinsel  that  dazzled  us.  One  has 
but  to  hush  his  music  and  extinguish 
his  lights  to  reduce  the  brilliant  scene 
to  grayness.  How  serious  turn  the  gay 
if  they  do  but  pause — just  as  one  seems 
to  escape  from  locality  and  obtain  im- 
munity from  the  moment  as  long  as  he 
keeps  going,  yet  to  sink  into  their  mire 
again  the  instant  he  stops;  and  as  all 
men  feel  an  emancipation  in  mere 
speed.  The  bare  walls  of  existence  are 
scarcely  recognizable  if  our  bric-a-brac 
and  miscellany  of  ornamentation  are 
removed;  what  were  the  landscape 

[296] 


.       FAR  HORIZONS 

of  life  without  our  spiritual  atmos- 
phere? The  charm  of  the  climate  is 
imputed  to  the  country;  we  cannot 
believe  that  the  glow  of  early  life  was 
due  solely  to  our  dreams.  Are  these  in- 
deed the  romantic  persons  of  our  young 
enthusiasm,  these  that  now  go  their 
prosaic  way  of  maturity  ?  Whither  is 
the  erewhile  spring  in  our  steps  upon 
this  same  path  ?  Coldly  the  elder  eyes 
behold  the  hotfoot  of  youth;  our  for- 
mer motives  become  incomprehensible. 
Quickly  indeed  would  the  world  be 
dashed  upon  the  rocks  of  unreality 
were  its  helm  in  the  hand  of  youth- 
illusioned  pilots. 

Opportunity  sobers  longing.  Ob- 
jects while  yet  unseen  seem  nearer 
than  when  at  last  they  come  into  sight. 
Let  us  not  go  too  close  for  effect;  all 
meetings  dissipate  some  sentiment  or 
destroy  some  ideal.  On  board  the  ship 

[297] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

her  lines  are  not  visible;  patriotism 
flourishes  best  outside  the  capital.  Life 
is  a  music  heard  most  sweetly  at  a  dis- 
tance, where  it  blends.  On  the  return 
of  long-absent  friends  it  is  often  diffi- 
cult to  identify  one's  idealizing  remem- 
brance of  them  with  the  reality.  Our 
conception  of  one  another  grows  more 
distinctive  in  separation:  correspond- 
ence proves  to  be  the  closer  touch.  The 
mind  by  an  acquired  momentum  goes 
on  with  the  persons  from  whom  it 
parts;  and  we  are  accompanied  on  a 
journey  not  by  those  that  travel  with 
us,  but  by  those  that  remain  behind. 

Fear  and  hope  discount  every  possi- 
bility :  the  anticipated  has  already  hap- 
pened. To  the  lively  fancy,  experience 
is  a  continual  relief  or  disappointment, 
for  few  pains  or  pleasures  equal  their 
foretaste.  Nothing  is  so  beautiful  or 
so  dreadful  but  it  has  been  outpictured : 

[298] 


FAR  HORIZONS 

the  event  is  surprisingly  neutral.  By 
the  time  the  imaginative  get  to  the  liv- 
ing of  it,  the  gusto  of  life  is  gone. 
Dwelling  on  the  deed  palsies  the  doing 
of  it:  the  preparations  we  make  for  a 
great  occasion  usually  end  in  taking 
the  wind  out  of  action's  sails  and  in 
leaving  the  hand  lifeless.  Imagination 
lives  a  continuous  anti-climax. 

Dread  pertains  to  the  unknown. 
We  shrink  from  the  short,  sharp  mo- 
ment of  pain  because  we  do  not  know 
its  limits;  but  fear  subsides  when  we 
know  the  worst.  In  every  anxiety  we 
turn  for  reassurance  to  those  that  have 
gone  before  us.  Ignorance  and  inex- 
perience have  a  hundred  fears  that 
wisdom  is  spared ;  the  aspen  leaf  of  ap- 
prehension trembles  in  a  breeze  per- 
ceptible to  itself  alone.  We  are  more 
startled  at  a  false  alarm  than  at  a  true, 
because  if  there  is  need  for  action,  the 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

nerves  feel  no  shock  of  reaction.  It  is 
chiefly  threatened  ills  that  make  us 
miserable:  what  we  have  once  incor- 
porated into  our  outlook  is  thereafter 
a  matter  of  indifference.  Nervous  peo- 
ple make  a  practice  of  anticipating  the 
worst,  so  that  whatever  happens  they 
shall  have  outfelt  it.  The  expected 
has  no  shock. 

The  pleasures  of  the  imagination  are 
keenest,  for,  being  free  from  the  dis- 
turbance of  contiguous  circumstance, 
they  enjoy  a  completeness  that  is  miss- 
ing in  those  afforded  by  active  life. 
The  bare  idea  serves  the  experienced 
for  reality:  as  we  advance,  we  sing 
more  within.  Participation  is  neces- 
sarily flurried  by  performance,  so  that 
from  any  eventful  experience  the  full 
realization  of  its  meaning  is  absent. 
Of  the  impressions  it  sought  how  shorn 

is    travel,    because   of    its   incidentals, 
rsooi 


FAR  HORIZONS 

No  white  light  of  fact  is  as  beautiful 
as  its  refracted  or  reflected  rays;  there 
is  a  charm  in  the  cultivated  landscapes 
of  imaginative  creation  that  the  primal 
scene  lacks.  Literature  is  a  moonlight 
that  casts  a  spell  over  life. 

Though  man  is  immured  in  the  four 
walls  of  his  five  senses,  he  roams  the 
universe.  Life  everywhere  presses  be- 
yond environment:  all  idealism  gazes 
out  to  sea.  No  game  that  gives  more 
than  fleeting  glimpses  of  itself  is  worthy 
of  the  sportsman;  the  truth-seeker 
shoots  on  the  wing.  Ever  a  frontiers- 
man is  faith,  dwelling  on  the  fringe 
of  fact's  settlements.  Humanity  scales 
the  ringed  horizon  of  its  whereabouts 
and  crowds  into  each  fresh  territory 
opened  up. 

We  are  never  really  disillusioned,  but 
disappointment  only  lodges  its  hopes 
elsewhere:  idealization  brooks  no  long 

[301] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

suspense.  In  default  of  perfection  it 
puts  up  with  approximations,  and  how- 
ever visible  may  be  the  clay  feet  it 
does  not  intermit  its  worship.  The 
Germany  of  our  student  days,  the 
America  of  our  freedom,  must  still  be 
somewhere  in  existence,  though  we  are 
forced  to  posit  them  upon  the  stars. 
Unending  is  the  search  for  El  Dorado. 
The  Oceanica  of  the  beyond  con- 
futes all  sceptics:  every  spiritual  navi- 
gator reports  it — only  stay-at-home  ma- 
terialists are  incredulous.  Though  its 
coast-lines  remain  uncharted,  no  lands 
are  so  well  authenticated:  man  is  in 
closer  and  more  frequent  commerce 
with  the  unrealized  world  than  with 
the  actual  about  him.  Of  what  life 
does  not  the  desire  lie  on  the  other  side 
of  some  Jordan  of  separation  ?  Con- 
sciousness is  in  continuous  migration 
elsewhither:  to  depict  dreams  is  the 

[302] 


PAR  HORIZONS 

province  of  art.  Though  each  day  is 
an  expedition,  yet  there  are  ever  unex- 
plored regions  left.  Only  against  a 
glorified  horizon  is  existence  sharply 
outlined.  Earth  remains  stoically  dull 
to  the  illumination  of  the  west,  but 
the  far-seeing  skies  are  fired. 


[803] 


THE  UNCIRCUMSTANCED 
SOUL 

THE  mind,  having  its  own  environ- 
ment, pursues  a  different  course 
from  that  of  the  body.  It  looks 
one  way  but  sees  another;  it  sits  here 
but  thinks  there.  The  chair  is  a  jour- 
ney. Others  imagine  us  to  be  mentally 
occupied  as  circumstances  or  speech 
would  indicate — yet  so  is  it  seldom. 
The  immediate  holds  us  but  for  a 
moment;  our  response  reveals  a  cir- 
cuit of  thought  since  the  remark  that 
evoked  it.  It  may  often  be  that  those 
who  do  not  know  enough  to  come  in 
out  of  the  rain,  know  too  much  to  do 
so.  Firmly  planted  are  the  feet  of  him 

[304] 


THE  UNCIRCUMSTANCED  SOUL 

alone  whose  head  is  in  the  clouds.  We 
must  avert  the  gaze  from  what  we 
would  behold.  The  mind  swerves  off 
from  anything  it  faces  and  must  squint 
to  see.  Attention  perceives  when  it 
turns  its  back:  in  memory  is  the  scene, 
outside  the  concert-room  the  music. 
We  walk  the  unconscious  side  of  things 
and  look  across. 

Every  absence  from  the  desk  solves 
its  difficulties.  It  is  between  the  closing 
and  the  opening  of  our  office  that  most 
of  our  work  is  done:  the  saunter  is 
swifter  than  the  stride.  By  indirection 
the  purpose  accomplishes  itself.  With- 
out momentary  pretence  it  is  often 
impossible  to  give  a  permanently  true 
impression.  Comprehensiveness  and 
therefore  comprehension  must  always 
be  at  the  cost  of  apparent  coherence.  So 
many  are  the  ramifications  of  truth  that 
the  mind's  uncurbed  sequence  of  them 

[805] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

necessarily  leads  to  a  point  where  we 
forget  what  we  were  thinking  or  talking 
about.  The  straying  of  attention,  the 
rambling  of  thought,  the  flight  of  im- 
agination— all  these  are  a  larger  free- 
dom of  the  same  sense  of  association 
and  relevancy  that  under  closer  rein 
imposes  concentration. 

Silence  baffles,  whereas  any  answer 
is  a  clew :  what  the  word  conceals,  the 
tone  tells.  Others  do  not  notice  what 
we  hide,  but  only  our  hiding  it.  There 
is  no  such  effective  subterfuge  as  open- 
ness: we  suspect  only  what  is  done 
furtively.  It  is  the  overheard  remark, 
the  stricken-out  word  that  piques  at- 
tention: from  what  people  let  fall  we 
piece  out  the  disclosure.  Sight's  di- 
rectness meets  obstacles  that  sound's 
deviation  avoids;  all  hear  the  sunset- 
gun,  few  see  the  flag  drop. 

Because  implying  general  knowledge 
[  306  ] 


THE  UNCIRCUMSTANCED  SOUL 

or  acceptance,  an  incidental  allusion 
is  felt  to  concede  more  than  any  di- 
rect mention  states.  Where  such  trib- 
ute to  Napoleon's  greatness  as  the 
prestige  accruing  to  Britain  through 
his  overthrow  ?  Criticism  is  always  the 
shadow  of  praise — it  is  insignificance 
alone  that  escapes  comment.  The  most 
galling  of  all  offences  is  neglect;  no 
studied  exclusion  cuts  like  the  mere 
failure  to  include.  Any  positive  an- 
tagonism arouses  healthy  scorn,  but 
from  negative  indifference  we  get  no 
reaction  to  dispel  its  chill. 

It  is  not  conditions  that  count,  but 
our  own  condition:  all's  well  when  we 
are.  One  constantly  falls  into  the  er- 
ror of  attributing  his  inspired  moment 
to  the  place,  and  thinks  to  repeat  its 
occurrence  by  perpetuating  its  occa- 
sion. The  transfiguration  turns  out 
to  have  been  no  event  of  environment, 

[307] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

however,  but  one  of  universal  setting 
that  needs  not  the  vowing  of  any  tem- 
ple of  permanence  to  the  spot.  Every- 
where the  spiritually  fair  days  are  in- 
frequent, and  there  will  always  be 
some  inclemency  to  ruffle  the  smooth 
seeming  of  perfection.  We  shall 
discover  no  other  continent  of  life 
except  the  better  cultivation  of  this 
one,  no  new  heaven  until  there  is  a 
new  earth.  The  time  spent  in  outward 
search  were  better  spent  in  inward 
finding. 

Beneath  the  troubled  surface  of  the 
objective  world,  the  mind  swims  in 
the  clear  waters  of  truth.  Surround- 
ings cease  to  concern  as  purpose  be- 
comes serious.  For  their  better  enact- 
ment mental  operations  seek  out  spaces 
from  which  the  world  is  excluded: 
counting-rooms,  studios,  offices  furnish 
no  incitement  other  than  opportunity — 
[308] 


THE  UNCIRCUMSTANCED  SOUL 
like  a  deck  swept  for  action,  so  grim  is 
the  desk  of  the  great.  The  engrossed 
attention  is  as  unconscious  of  time  or 
whereabouts  as  is  sleep ;  where  the  soul 
is  full,  the  universe  is  empty.  Vital 
thought  is  unenvironed,  illustrious  deeds 
uncircumstanced :  the  drama  of  reality 
is  acted  without  stage-setting.  Care- 
less of  occasion  are  the  doughty,  and 
awaiting  no  mediacy :  life  at  high  pitch 
rests  lightly  on  earth.  As  oft  as  the 
heroic  or  poetic  fire  enters  the  soul,  the 
sky  cracks,  the  scene  falls  asunder  and 
men  are  revealed  as  great  protagonists 
in  a  world  of  their  own  conjuring. 

All  spots  are  sky-touched,  not  mere- 
ly the  horizon.  The  dream  sets  up  its 
Jacob's  ladder  wheresoever.  We  have 
but  to  open  up  communications  to  be 
in  touch.  Our  familiar  street  is  a 
sun-riviera.  The  great  spiritual  pres- 
ences do  not  so  much  as  require  us  to 

[  309  ] 


SOUL  AND  CIRCUMSTANCE 

go  to  them :  they  come  to  us  whenever 
our  hospitality  calls.  God  will  walk 
in  my  garden  in  the  cool  of  my  spirit- 
ual day. 


[310] 


UC  SOUTHS*  REGIONAL  UBRARY  FAOUTY 


A     000040130    7 


